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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30102519">tu fui, ego eris</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClementineKitten/pseuds/ClementineKitten'>ClementineKitten</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(to an extent), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Feelings Realization, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Relationship Study, Slow Burn, who woulda thunk.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 23:14:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,732</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30102519</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClementineKitten/pseuds/ClementineKitten</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tu fui, ego eris" is a Latin phrase meaning, "What you are, I was. What I am, you will be."</p>
<p>(A little something about desire, in which you see in colours that correspond to your soulmate's emotional state, and preteen Hinata has lived in darkness for so, so long.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>tu fui, ego eris</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"before i was found, i felt like i could drain the ocean<br/>before i was found, i didn't want to breathe out<br/>now my soul beats a sound, loud enough to quiet the thunder<br/>a love with no doubt, and now i'm never gonna slow down<br/>never gonna slow down."<br/>-body gold, oh wonder<br/>(aka the reason i haven't posted in a tick. enjoy! please ignore any italics glitches or i might cry.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When a child sees more in cold colours than in warm, it’s considered somewhat of a bad omen.</p>
<p>The child in question is seen as unfortunate -- tied to someone who’s endured so much hardship, only able to view the world in melancholic shades of stinging violet and Marianas Trench blues. Sometimes, older folk like to inquire as to what a child’s colour vision appears as; when they receive a response akin to what has just been described, they shake their heads in a dismal sort of way, pat the child on the shoulder, and hum, “Well, I’m sure when you meet your soulmate, that’ll change.”</p>
<p>Children, inexperienced in life they may be, still do not take kindly to condescension. When the adults around them express grievances with the darkness of their world, it incenses them, makes them even more fired up to find their soulmate and make them happy. To make those whom they are inexplicably tied to happy, so that they may see the world in a million shades of sunny yellows and pastel pinks, so the person who gifts unto them those colours never has to feel alone in their tragedy.</p>
<p>Despite that, it’s rare for a person to experience <em> only </em>hardship. Even for children who live in traumatic circumstances, their wonder and glee can persist in the face of that, if only for brief moments, hiccups in time where their soulmate is given recourse from dark, dark streets and buildings.</p>
<p>Yes, even in misery, the human’s optimistic, hopeful side struggles through like young saplings erupting through concrete. </p>
<p>Very rare is it that children can be so crestfallen for so long.</p>
<p>When he was thirteen years old, Hinata Shouyou’s once multicoloured life turned into frozen greys and deep navies, and it remained as such, unchangingly, for months, and months, and months.</p>
<p>(Well, there was a slight reprieve. But we’ll get to that once the time is right.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Some people pitied Hinata for it, his parents were a little concerned, and his friends, too, worried a little about his soulmate.</p>
<p>It’s the beginning of his third year of junior high, just about then, that the lights go out.</p>
<p>People like to gossip in the world, and the hottest topic of conversation -- especially for a bunch of junior high kids beginning their first forrays into the exploration of romance and sexuality -- is that of who the universe has decided as your other half.</p>
<p>(Naturally, an inquisitive, easily-embarrassed Hinata engaged with this rhetoric, too; it always ended in relentless teasing about a girl in his class with short black hair that couldn’t look him in the eye.)</p>
<p>Scientists have yet to make a breakthrough in how soulmates came to exist -- and if they had, they would have immediately been stumped by the fact that your vision is painted in your soulmate’s emotions. There’s blue for sadness, red for anger or passion, green for being distinctly calm, yellow for overwhelming happiness, etcetera, and most of it was fairly self-explanatory, and folks could accept that. In states of true ambivalence, the intensity wanes, and people are able to see colours for as they truly are, untouched by feeling.</p>
<p>(One has to wonder, though, if those are empirically sound. If most people are seeing in different colours, how can you trust the word of someone telling you what something is <em> supposed </em>to look like? Well, that one has a very easy answer...)</p>
<p>Some people point to the Jungian concept of synchronicity -- meaningful coincidences that, in a void, seem to mean nothing, but to the open-minded, may indicate a deeper bond between the dreaming universe and those who populate it. Occurrences such as, say, your father’s favourite bird being a falcon and seeing one overhead on the anniversary of his death, that may imply to some a hidden connection to unlocking the secrets of the world.</p>
<p>To the skeptic, though, it’s pseudoscientific poppycock. So no one can <em> really </em>agree on anything.</p>
<p>But enough with the jargon.</p>
<p>It was a Tuesday morning in April, when Hinata awoke to his room, caked in alarming twists of purple. When compared to other people in his grade or even among his friends, he wasn’t the type to rave and talk about his soulmate, but his world had been a little dreary lately, and he couldn’t help but worry, just a little, slipping into the anxieties of those around him.</p>
<p>He's walking around the school grounds, having met up with Izumi and Kouji and hotly debating the possible unconfirmed leaks of the newest Pokémon game coming out that fall, when his vision goes.</p>
<p>Suddenly attacked by a black that encroaches from his peripherals and quickly, indiscriminately steals through everything he can see, Hinata stumbles across the pavement, blinded for a few moments. The cold, piercing ink strikes through him as fiercely as if he were shot with actual bullets, before everything around him shifts -- almost mechanically -- into a stark deep blue, and he inhales pointedly.</p>
<p>“Shou-chan!” Izumi cries out, and Hinata, through the thick sea of dark sludge around him, feels a hand clamp onto his arm, and another grab the collar of his gakuran. “Are you alright?”</p>
<p>“What’s wrong?” Kouji adds, voice teeming with equal concern.</p>
<p>After the brief nausea subsides (again, the connection between soulmates is, typically, purely cosmetic -- though, in situations of great anguish, the sudden switch of colours can cause a sickening jolt in the affected), Hinata steadies himself on uncertain feet and brushes his bangs out of the way.</p>
<p>“Yikes,” he mumbles, glaring up into a sky painted madly in wretched strokes of violent violets and indescribable indigos. Within seconds, like the sun was shut off, Hinata was plunged into shadows that send a chill up his back and writhe eerily all around him. He looks into Izumi and Kouji’s anxious faces. “Uh, something totally just happened to my soulmate. It’s all dark, now.”</p>
<p>When his own unease slips away, it’s replaced instead by annoyance. “It’s so hard to see!” he complains, whipping around to glare at haunting tree trunks and schoolmates that move about as if in the shade of the world’s tallest mountain.</p>
<p>Relief floods his friends’ expressions, but Izumi’s eyebrows remain knit. “They didn’t, like, <em> die, </em>or anything, did they?” he voices, fiddling nervously with the front of his uniform.</p>
<p>“Oh, crap! What if?!”</p>
<p>“Dude,” Kouji interjects, stone-faced. “If that happened, you wouldn’t be seeing a bunch of dark colours. You’d just see everything normally.”</p>
<p>(There’s a lot of older folks in the business of clothes design.)</p>
<p>“Oh. Yeah. Right.” Hinata scratches the back of his head sheepishly, frowning at nothing in particular. Sure, maybe things had been a little weirder than normal, in regards to his soulmate. As a kid, he never noticed anything atypical, but seeing brightly had become more and more of a rarity in the past few months.</p>
<p>He can’t help the niggling wonder in the corner of his mind, a strange, rising thought of <em> what happened? </em>But thinking about it too hard is pointless; he’s heard so many stories about people who never meet their soulmates, who live on the other side of the world from them, or who pass each other in busy streets without a second thought.</p>
<p>Maybe Hinata won’t even <em> see </em>the person who has, presently, coated his life in such.</p>
<p>Of course he's had the odd infatuation or two, but nothing ever really stuck, and none of them did he even really manage to acknowledge. Sometimes when his parents would watch T.V with him when he was young, and there would be romance on the screen, he would squirm and his mother would laugh and say, "Shouyou's too scatterbrained for a girlfriend," while she ruffled his hair. And his father's eyes would glint as he adjusted his glasses, saying something like, "I recall you saying the same thing about me, dear." And they would chuckle about some colours Hinata was too young to understand.</p>
<p>Truth be told, Hinata hadn’t ever wanted a girlfriend.</p>
<p>He hadn't thought too hard about why, yet.</p>
<p>"Are you sure you're okay?" frets Izumi, and Kouji slaps him on the back.</p>
<p>"He's fine!" Kouji barks, while Izumi glares at him, offended. "He's Shouyou." He says this with a confident smile, but his hand doesn’t move from where it’s steadying Hinata’s shoulder.</p>
<p>"Yeah, you’re right, sorry guys.” Hinata shakes his head, as if the colours were like an etch-a-sketch, and his world would reset. It’s not like much has changed other than them, and his composure has returned to what it was before the shift. “I’m good. But yeesh.” He gives his friends a reassuring grin, wanting to assuage their apprehension. “Kinda weird start to the day. But like I was <em> saying, </em> the fire starter is <em> so cool… </em>”</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Kageyama is having trouble focusing before his game with Yukigaoka.</p>
<p>While he’s busy setting things up with his team, the court, the balls, their gear, all flicker sporadically between yellow, sickening green, flashes of weak red, and pops of blue and purple. It’s irritating beyond belief. He’s not so asinine as to let something so minor get in the way of playing, but moving past that, he hasn’t been able to find any information on Yukigaoka. While their girls’ team has a pretty good track record, it was like their boys’ team just… appeared out of thin air.</p>
<p>Some of -- no, a lot of -- their team seemed to take that as a clue to slack off. And that only worsened when they caught a look of their team. All of them are lacking in the height department, with not a single sub in sight, and it doesn’t even look like they have a <em> libero.  </em></p>
<p>But there is no excuse for underestimating an opponent.</p>
<p>No matter what.</p>
<p>
  <em> If you get really good, I promise… </em>
</p>
<p>He clenches a ball between his palms, spinning it like he does before a serve, irked that the second years are taking so long to refill their water bottles when official warmups are just about to begin, and pissed off by the nauseating yellow-green colour everything has so kindly chosen to settle into. He breaks away abruptly from his team, stalking toward the entrance to the gymnasium to tell his kouhai to move their asses.</p>
<p>Instead of running into only them, though, he catches them ripping on some kid from Yukigaoka -- their captain, from the looks of it. Even among their short team, he’s standout, with a determined flourish to his face that hardly quivers, even at Kageyama’s glare.</p>
<p>At some point during their confrontation -- <em> his </em>confrontation with the only person he senses particular drive from -- the colours stabilize, they fall into place, they dry satisfyingly like oil paint on a canvas. Blood orange streaks the walls of the hallway and runs in rivulets across from the boy’s feet to Kageyama’s own.</p>
<p><em> “I’m going to win them all” </em>is big talk for someone who sways on his feet when Kageyama turns around, but in due time he will see if he was bluffing, or if there's a kernel of truth to his words.</p>
<p>+</p>
<p>It changes.</p>
<p>It <em> changes. </em></p>
<p>Mark the day -- third year of junior high, Summer Tournament.</p>
<p>Unrelenting blue changes.</p>
<p>(<em>Hinata stands up, rubbing the back of his head, not really having the luxury of bellyaching over the dull, but searing all the same pain, that has started at his coccyx and begins to spread through his lower body after slamming into the door of the gymnasium. He’s too focused on the game ahead of them, and the first year standing in front of him. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> He asks how Hinata can play to this degree when they’re so outclassed; this puzzles Hinata. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “We haven’t lost yet,” he responds honestly. </em>
</p>
<p><em> Hinata cannot be content on the court, because he is fighting endlessly for the privilege to stay there. That being said, he is here, now, in that very moment of combat. All he knows is that he can’t possibly let up until he is dragged by his collar from this gym.</em>)</p>
<p>Maybe "changes" isn't all that right. Perhaps it's more apt to say it <em> eases </em>.</p>
<p>Like lifting a curtain come night time. It's not that the shade of the room becomes different, but as moonlight struggles through glass, it's lighter, gentler. The navy lets up and in its place seeps something one could even call <em> calming. </em></p>
<p>You can breathe for once.</p>
<p>+</p>
<p>(<em>Kageyama's inhale catches. </em></p>
<p><em> He's right -- this kid, pint-sized, without thimble of technical prowess in his lithe body, is, despite his tiny form, filled with that same overflowing, ravenous desire for victory. In fact, it’s more than just desire -- it’s </em> hunger. <em> Desire can get you sick if it’s all that sustains you, but you can starve without </em> something <em> that satiates. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> How is it that it seems like he has so much of what his team lacks, when Kageyama has never seen him before? When he stole a point out right from under him? </em>
</p>
<p><em> What has he been doing?</em>)</p>
<p>Passionate yellows, teeming with lilts of nervous limes that loop through such like thread, deepen to a solid, determined orange in tandem with Kageyama’s own resolve drawing taut.</p>
<p>All the discombobulated shades tighten into one confident one, striking upwards like a guiding pillar that pierces the gymnasium with its brilliance.</p>
<p>Sturdy, perhaps, is one way to say it.</p>
<p>Certain.</p>
<p>Electric.</p>
<p>(<em>They’re here to play volleyball -- that’s it. The game isn’t over until one of the two teams lets the ball hit the ground first; whether it’s the objective easiest opponent in the world or the most difficult, nothing is decided until that point. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> Kageyama is good. He isn’t going to lose. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> But just as he hasn’t yet lost, he hasn’t yet won, either. </em>
</p>
<p><em> All of what was missing in Kageyama gravitates together, like how the sun pulls the planets of the solar system in toward it.</em>)</p>
<p>+</p>
<p>Everything draws together right before Hinata's widening eyes.</p>
<p>The dour shades begin to melt into the cracks in the floor, leaving a young, bursting blue that unfurls like the petals of a morning glory in the new light of day, and it warms Hinata through his skin to be suddenly surrounded by something so wonderfully energetic. It flies around him, unbound, like gas particles zipping excitedly through empty space.</p>
<p>He can hardly believe just how different everything looks with a new paint job. How much better. How much kinder.</p>
<p>(<em>Hinata’s heart starts and stops without him even thinking about it. He’d lost track of how long his life had been one solid, sordid colour. He has other things to worry about, more important things, like the game before him, but he can’t help feeling completely momentarily amazed. Something happened! Something changed to make them… well, maybe not happy, but not so sad!  </em></p>
<p>
  <em> “Senpai, are you okay?” asks the first year, snapping him to the attention he fell out of despite his best efforts. That’s right. They’re in the here and now, and Kitaichi is standing, waiting, across the net. Their King is waiting. He can marvel over this at a later time. </em>
</p>
<p><em> “I’m okay,” he affirms, but it doesn’t wipe the apprehension from the face of his teammate. “Come on, we’re not done.”</em>)</p>
<p>It actually begins to hurt his eyes. He’s travelled so long in this darkness.</p>
<p>+</p>
<p>(<em>Kageyama’s chest burns, for reasons he can’t fully comprehend.  </em></p>
<p>
  <em> Their captain -- Kageyama doesn’t think he ever told him his name -- is one step ahead, one single stride in front of Kageyama, and he hardly knows how. He hardly knows why. All he has is his knowledge that this boy is struggling against all odds with such a pure honesty it makes Kageyama’s hair stand on end. He wasn’t lying. He’s here to win. </em>
</p>
<p><em> Kageyama doesn’t intend to take that smoldering determination lightly.</em>)</p>
<p>Kageyama’s always been used to warm colours.</p>
<p>But this… this is <em> hot, </em>these ones are blazing indiscriminately throughout the gymnasium, they’re scorching all of Kageyama’s exposed skin and causing him to breathe smoke deep inside his lungs. The very air he moves through wavers, like pavement in the middle of summer, as humid orange wreathes around all of him in thick, smothering bands. The boy leaping off the ground shines in a harsh, incandescent glow that flares with the tongues of a growing fire, and it’s so stifling Kageyama is momentarily blinded.</p>
<p>And yet, even in that suffocation, he feels so alive.</p>
<p>(<em>Sure, that speed is insane, and sure, he can jump higher than Kageyama’s seen, especially for someone of his height.  </em></p>
<p>
  <em> But Kageyama won’t falter. </em>
</p>
<p><em> He’s not going to, he can’t, he refuses to--</em>)</p>
<p>+</p>
<p>(<em>They lose. </em></p>
<p><em> “What have you been doing these past three years?!” Kitaichi’s King yells at him from the other side of the court, white-hot fist clenched full of net.</em>)</p>
<p>Hinata can’t breathe for just a heartbeat, so short he perhaps could have missed it had he chose to blink then, as his world plunges back into ink while the King glares.</p>
<p>(<em>First and last tournament results: eliminated in the first match.</em>)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>(If either of them notice the soft, surprised yellows that light both their worlds when they see each other at Karasuno for the first time, it doesn’t seem like they care.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“Nii-chan, what are you doing?”</p>
<p>Hinata reels back, leaning on the balls of his palms to look at Natsu as she pulls back the door to the house and steps out. “It’s cold,” she complains, crossing her arms over the front of her pajamas.</p>
<p>“It’s not cold, your hair is just wet,” responds Hinata, flinging back to upright as Natsu pads out to stand beside him. It's getting pretty well into spring, actually, and a pleasant breeze snakes through the air of their backyard.</p>
<p>Natsu pouts. "Well, it's your turn in the bath, but you're just sitting out here like a weirdo. You're not even out here with your ball."</p>
<p>"Can't a man enjoy the peace and quiet?" Hinata rolls his wrist around in a fanciful sort of way, throwing his hand out like he's offering her something.</p>
<p>"No, you're too noisy for that."</p>
<p>Hinata glares up at her. Undeterred in only the way a seven year old can be, she repeats, "So what are you doing?"</p>
<p>"Hmmm." Hinata looks back out into their yard -- it's dark, now, only the last vestiges of the set sun struggling up under the dark film of sky, but it's not dark in a sad way. Not dark in a lonely way. Just dark.</p>
<p>There's no special shades tonight, no melancholic ripples of navy blue. The world is solely as it was created; the grass is a shiny green and the pavement under him is grey and that normalcy is enough to make Hinata smile.</p>
<p>It's been about a month, give or take, since he started at Karasuno, and it seems like his soulmate is having a better time. Maybe they just hated their middle school for whatever reason. Or maybe they completely moved to somewhere better. Either way, there's been a certain consistency to how <em> not </em>dark it has gotten as of late. Sure, it’s not suddenly all rosy pinks and neon yellows, but it’s so much better than the alternative. "What colours do you see right now, Natsu?"</p>
<p>"Me? Um… it's kinda orangey-pinky." Natsu squints. "What about you, Nii-chan?"</p>
<p>"Nothing at all!" Hinata holds his head up proudly, bumping his fists against his waist. "Everything's totally normal in your Nii-chan's world!"</p>
<p>"Wha? Really?” Natsu hops to her toes, squatting at Hinata’s side. Wonder lights up her face as she glances in the same direction as him. “But you always said you could only see in, like, dark blue! And purple!” she exclaims.</p>
<p>“Right? Not lately,” Hinata says, cheered by her enthusiasm. Forget the warm colours, it’s been forever since he’s gotten to see like <em> this.  </em></p>
<p>“Maybe your soulmate goes to Karasuno,” Natsu suggests. “Maybe they’re even in your class! Maybe this…” She waves her hand like she’s wiping down a window. “...Is your fault. In a good way.”</p>
<p><em> Maybe </em>has become one of Natsu’s favourite words in the past few days. It gives her a sort of plausible deniability when their mother asks about certain kitchen utensils that have gone missing or who tracked mud into the house. And it makes her a lot more sassy; she’s shaping up to be a piece of work. An innocent, adorable piece of work, but a piece of work regardless.</p>
<p>“Do you think?” Hinata humours her. <em> As if. </em> He would know if he had met his soulmate. It was supposed to be all fireworks and blinding lights, where he would inhale and taste lemonade and smell lilies. The moment they locked eyes, his life would be irrevocably changed. Romance and the like was never his favourite thing, of course, but he’s infallibly certain that he would <em> recognize </em>the person plucked out for him by the universe.</p>
<p>“Yeah!” Natsu goes. “For example, I’m pretty sure <em> my </em>soulmate is Kacchan.”</p>
<p>Rinzaki Kasumi. Natsu’s best friend. Moving along.</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>“We did an experiment,” Natsu bubbles. “She fell off the monkey bars and got hurt, and <em> I </em> saw a sad purple for a second, so I did the same thing, and <em> she </em> saw it. Then sensei got us in trouble.” She puffs out her cheeks. “But it’s, um… <em> umnistakable. </em>”</p>
<p>Menace in the making. “You mean unmistakable?”</p>
<p>Natsu flops down, kicking her bare feet, making a face at him. “Maybe <em> your </em>soulmate is your best friend.”</p>
<p>Well, Izumi and Kouji are ruled out by virtue of them being there during the <em> incident. </em>He hasn’t gotten all that close to many other people in his class yet, and has spent most of his cognizant moments at school in club. He doesn’t have a lot of people to make the comparison to -- and as has been discussed, he would know. It’s an intuitive thing.</p>
<p>If T.V shows and movies and research projects that were like pulling teeth have taught him anything, it’s that romantic soulmates are more common than platonic ones. Hinata wonders which angle Natsu’s getting at, exactly.</p>
<p>He looks down at his hand, flexing his fingers into a fist and letting them uncurl with careful deliberation.</p>
<p>None of those T.V shows and movies liked to tell stories about people like him.</p>
<p>But he’s not mad. He’s not lonely. He hardly has time to think about things like that, anyhow! What he’s solely focused on now is becoming the ace of Karasuno, and being able to look Kageyama in the eye and say he’s the one who stayed on the court the longest. Everything else is secondary to that goal at the moment.</p>
<p>If they’re happy, all the more power to them and to him.</p>
<p>It’s just… kind of nice, to look at things like this.</p>
<p>“But, Nii-chan, you can’t forget about me,” whines Natsu with a mutinous expression, “even when you find who your soulmate is. I have to be your number one.”</p>
<p>Hinata looks at her, a little surprised, and then starts to laugh. He pokes her in the cheek. “Yeah, yeah,” he says as she sways away from him, shying from his cloying touch.</p>
<p>“Shouyou, Natchan, what are you doing out here?” They both crane their necks to see their mother opening the door to the backward, hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. “It’s your turn in the bath, Shouyou. It’s getting late, and you should hurry.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” drawls Hinata, getting up. Natsu follows him, toddling after her brother as they both step inside. As they do, their mother pauses Hinata, laying a hand on his face and smoothing the space below his left eye with her thumb. “What?” </p>
<p>“You had some dirt,” she explains. With that analytical, slightly disapproving look he knows so well (she works with small children, and he himself was an unruly kid), she keeps holding him, his head tipped up to stare into her piercing amber eyes (runs in the family). He squirms.</p>
<p>“Mom, what are you doing?”</p>
<p>“Nothing,” she says, lips pursed. “You just look a little different.” When she releases him, the hardness to her expression fades and is instead replaced with a small smile, putting a gentle glow back on her face. “Now go get ready for bed. Natchan, you too, it’s late.”</p>
<p>“Aw, man,” mourns Natsu, but Hinata sees her fending off a yawn as she ambles away regardless. Hinata’s mother pats him on the shoulder, and he shoots her another inquisitive glance.</p>
<p>"You just look happy, honey," she says, and with a cheeky quirk of her voice, continues, "and you're filthy. Now go to the bath.” </p>
<p>She pushes him away, and he reluctantly adheres to his mother’s instructions, admiring as he goes along the completely mundane colours of the wall and the carpeted floor. His mother regards him as he seems to be amazed by the simplest of things on his way to the bathroom.</p>
<p>(In retrospect, the wrong Hinata was worrying about being left behind -- because the first time Hinata brought Kageyama over to his house to hang out, Natsu was so enamored that she had to call Kasumi immediately to tell her the bad news that she must have been mistaken about the whole soulmate shebang.</p>
<p>Hinata’s mother watched with interest how her son was a little more affectionate, a little more inflammatory with him, than he was with his other friends that she knew, and how the young man in question seemed to hang onto her son’s words a little more duly than them, as well. She notices these things in a way only mothers do.</p>
<p>...Her daughter proposing to him with a plastic ring notwithstanding.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The world is topsy-turvy, upside down, all out of sorts. </p>
<p>...This is partially because Kageyama is staring at the ceiling through his legs, rolled up against the wall, listening to the heavy sound of his own ragged breathing. The awkward position isn’t his only source of malcontent, though, as he strains his eyes to look at Hinata, flopped on the ground in a similarly uncomfortable pose. </p>
<p>He’s tired in a way he can’t really describe. But even in that tiredness, he’s pervaded by a powerful, unrelenting drive, one that flares with each flicker of that final point against Seijoh through his head, a tripping video stuck on loop. Every new spark only strengthens that feeling of determination within him, and the frustration at having nowhere to direct it tumbles through his crumpled body.</p>
<p>He feels it so strongly, feels their loss; not his loss, not the King’s loss, but <em> Karasuno’s </em>loss, in each cell of his body. And it burns, making the walls of them vibrate against each other in an agitation that causes his stomach to writhe and twist.</p>
<p>As an athlete, he can’t avoid losing. </p>
<p>But he never wants to feel like this again.</p>
<p>Hinata picks himself off of the ground, and as he does, tears pricking the corners of his eyes, the muddied world begins to cake and dry, turning away from dark and mottled colours and instead gliding into something lighter, sun-licked. </p>
<p>It kind of reminds him of how everything pulled together during the game when he met Hinata. It probably means nothing, but all of a sudden, he’s awash with those memories. It’s been some months since them, but already, it feels like there’s an entire lifetime between his game against Yukigaoka and the present moment, an entire lifetime that led him to get himself off of the ground as he watched that insolent captain’s gaze sharpen with intent.</p>
<p>Something about it is odd, really. Hinata keeps finding new ways to surprise him; just when he thinks he’s got the dumbass figured out, he flips on a dime. In that tiny body, with that unbridled, unrestrained athletic prowess, he doesn’t slow down, because if he lets himself do such, he’ll be left in the dust.</p>
<p>But he’s got that same gleam in his eyes that he did back then. </p>
<p>That very same gleam that makes Kageyama’s heart rate accelerate, and causes his hackles to rise. Hinata is <em> soft, </em>his face and his hair and from the curve of all of his features to the bend of his muscles, no part of him is all that threatening. But it’s in that single, intense, breathtaking expression, that it morphs him into someone that gives Kageyama goosebumps that smatter all across him.</p>
<p>And makes him itch to play. He makes Kageyama want to move.</p>
<p>No; rather, it makes him <em> have </em>to move.</p>
<p>Because he swore to Kageyama he wasn’t going to be at his back forever.</p>
<p>So until they come to that promised land, where there is starlight everywhere and his words finally struggle to fruition, he won’t slow down, either.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>It’s red. It’s so red, it’s painful.</p>
<p>Deeply saturated electric red blinds Kageyama and a vengeful crimson creeps in from the corners of his vision as he throws Hinata -- light, slim -- to the floor, and hears Yachi let out a frightened cry as his body hits the wood. He thinks she runs away, but he’s not exactly paying that close of attention to her.</p>
<p>Hinata’s entire form dances and throbs, expression contorted with steadfast rage, glaring at Kageyama with the fury of a thousand suns behind his eyes, all of which lick at his irises and put the very essence of fire into him.</p>
<p>They’re both so angry, all they can see is red. For once, both of them are seeing in the same shade, the same hue, the same sparkles and lines that tear across and gouge out the warps in the gymnasium’s wood.</p>
<p>And neither of them have the capacity to focus on it.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>(But it was for the best -- the way you strengthen steel is by heating it up, over and over, just like how muscles are strengthened by pushing them to their limits and ripping their fibres, again and again.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The evening is hazy. </p>
<p>The lines of existence blur together into the fuschia sky, having an affair with content, sleepy oranges and more childlike, giddy pinks, ones that braid into each other and bend into dreamy clouds that pass from beyond the cool glass of their team’s bus. The tops of trees whisper in the shades of grapefruit and whirl by as they drive.</p>
<p>Just about to succumb to his total exhaustion, Kageyama barely registers his side being nudged. Without turning his head, he tersely mumbles, “What do you want, Hinata? I’m trying to sleep.”</p>
<p>“Prickly,” replies Hinata, sounding equally as drained, and with good reason. Five sets will do that to a person. “I was just checking if you were awake.”</p>
<p>With an aggravated sigh, Kageyama lets his eyelids flutter completely shut, taking his waning attention off of the (admittedly pretty) scenery as he sinks one step further into unconsciousness. “Not anymore.”</p>
<p>“No, wait, listen,” Hinata grumbles, too on the verge of shutting down to put any real bite into it. “We won, right? We beat <em> the </em>Shiratorizawa.”</p>
<p>Kageyama wonders, very distantly, if the whimsical state of their surroundings has eroded Hinata’s short term memory skills. He lets his head fall against the window, feels the rumbling hum of the wheels on pavement reverberate through him. “Yeah.”</p>
<p>“We get to go to Nationals.” Hinata’s voice like this is unfamiliar -- quiet, contemplative. Roughened with the satisfied drowsiness that blankets the entire vehicle. Dropping off at the end of his sentences. “We made it.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” repeats Kageyama. “But we still have a long way to go.”</p>
<p>“Let’s go to the top. So our senpai don’t have any regrets.”</p>
<p>“I’m not doing this only for them.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t say that.”</p>
<p>Kageyama’s eyelids creak open begrudgingly, and his pupils slide over to look at Hinata, who gazes up with heavy-lidded eyes of his own. He looks just about what Kageyama would expect someone whose legs were shaking so hard he could hardly walk out of the building without help to appear as, but even with that lethargy, he’s still, somehow, radiant. </p>
<p>In that sleepy face twinkles tired, but not slight, fortitude, teeming in the colours of the clouds and shaped with the contours of the sky. And Kageyama wishes not to explore how it makes his throat catch. He really needs to eat something. Or go to bed. Or both, but probably not simultaneously.</p>
<p>“We will,” is what he responds with, and again closes his eyes. The street below is even, and so, there’s no sudden divots in the concrete or cracks to make the bus leap, which lulls Kageyama back to the window, a strange sense of peace warming him.  “Go to the top, I mean.”</p>
<p>“Mm.” Hinata mutters indistinctly, but agreeably.</p>
<p>They really did get to this point, huh. All of them -- not just the six of them who started the game, but the substitutes, the people on the bench, their coaches, and Shimizu and Yachi. They wouldn’t have beat Shiratorizawa if even one of them wasn’t giving it their all, but luckily, he doesn’t have to imagine that reality.</p>
<p>Because he lives in this one, and it’s just not productive to skip about in hypotheticals and what-ifs.</p>
<p>They have so much work to do, truly.</p>
<p>But for now, it’s nice to revel.</p>
<p>As the strings keeping him bound to wakefulness begin to tease and weaken, and he threatens to completely pass out for who knows how long, he’s roused by an urgent impulse, one murky and unclear, but one that catches him regardless. “Hey, Hinata,” he murmurs.</p>
<p>He waits, but there comes no response.</p>
<p>...He must have fallen asleep.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Kageyama Tobio is no genius.</p>
<p>He has been called one, many times by many different people, oftentimes in a congratulatory way, sometimes in a derogatory way. He doesn’t know what exactly he’s supposed to take from it, has never been great at discerning those different contexts and cues.</p>
<p>That term… <em> Genius. </em>Prodigy. Words like that. Aren’t they meant to imply a sort of… inclination? A disposition? An inborn talent one must cultivate, but that is natural all the same. He knows how others perceive him -- a machine, a King, a person with overwhelming potential.</p>
<p>A goody-two-shoes.</p>
<p>What others say about him shouldn’t matter.</p>
<p>(It does, though. But it shouldn’t <em> have </em> to. <em> The New King of the Court, </em>huh.)</p>
<p>Kageyama Tobio is no genius, but if genius is meant as a euphemism for just how much of his soul he has dedicated to this sport, how much time and effort and all the blood, sweat, and tears he has poured into becoming who he is today, then perhaps he is. But was he born this way, and born with these skills?</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>Maybe some things are inherent -- Kageyama just got a faster start than most. He’s good and he knows that but he has yet to be good enough and likely never will be. <em> Enough </em>is such a vague term -- constantly, he is learning, and constantly, he is improving. That’s better than some eventuality. Every day of his life, he works toward being a better control tower and conductor, and being the best setter out there. In some sense, since that’s so intangible, he’s working toward something, and working toward nothing.</p>
<p>For so long, all he did was strive for greatness and perfection. In his fitful pursuit of someone even better, he cut himself on the edge of glory and turned his back on his screaming wounds while he bled out. He wanted everyone to be just like him; flawless, untouchable. To match him. To <em> be </em>that someone.</p>
<p>He watches Hinata, shoulders clutched by Takeda’s steady hands, as he struggles through his perspiration, his fluster, and the tears that threaten to spill over. It is then that he realizes (though perhaps he had known it latently for some time now) that he loves this team, more than he thought he could love anything other than volleyball itself. He doesn't want this to be their end. He wants to fight and win and triumph with Karasuno.</p>
<p>"I win," Kageyama starts, noticing just how hoarse his voice has become with the effort of the game, "this time, too."</p>
<p>He wants to stand with them on the court for as long as possible. </p>
<p>Hinata's determined face glows in contrast to the misery around him, and he stands, a trembling form of 164 centimetres, as a monument to that.</p>
<p>Kageyama Tobio is no genius, but when one watches their vision flicker rapidly from desolate, desperate grey, to all-consuming, fiery ruby-red that strains his eyes, into the solemn indigo not of acquiescence but instead of resolve, one starts to wonder.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>And he wonders when his vision goes sparkling orange when he and Hinata show off their first quick as senpai in front of wide-eyed first years that whoop and holler over how much cooler it is in person, and Hinata whips around to look at him with that shining smile of his. </p>
<p>And he wonders when Hinata takes out his math test that he had been too scared to look at when he got it back, marked, in class; he offers it a passing glance as he and Kageyama walk down the hall, and suddenly Kageyama is staring blankly into a horrified expression marked hesitantly in sickly greens and nauseating yellows.</p>
<p>And he wonders when he sees smatterings of red like blotches of paint haphazardly flung onto a canvas by an unruly brush around the edges of his vision, slowly sneaking up to engulf him in a scarlet realm when he and Hinata bicker and it goes too far.</p>
<p>And when not just the colours are warm, but his chest has an uncomfortable fuzziness that itches against his sternum like cotton, while Hinata laughs about something unimportant to Kageyama but important to him.</p>
<p>And when he's suddenly dipped, as if stepping into a dark lagoon, and his head swings around to look at Hinata with a rush of fear.</p>
<p>And when he's playing with Hinata and everything is bright.</p>
<p>And when he's nodding off in class and struggling to understand complicated worksheets (what the Hell is a <em> rational </em>function? Anything but, apparently) in stiff, bored greys that buzz like white noise over the radio.</p>
<p>And when he's lying in bed at night and somehow his mind turns back to Hinata.</p>
<p>And when he closes his eyes and like film rolling on the inside of his eyelids, he sees him beaming back through the fog of his tired mind.</p>
<p>And when Hinata begins to -- not slowly but surely, but at breakneck speeds that are enough to give Kageyama whiplash -- insert himself into Kageyama's head more and more, intrude on completely unrelated trains of thought and nose further into his business.</p>
<p>And when Hinata high-tens him and his pulse quickens with the delirious, beguiling heat of his hands.</p>
<p>And when his face starts to fluster a little too frequently if Hinata looks at him a little too closely, and as this begins to happen more and more, each flush is accompanied with the sensation of a rock being dropped into his stomach.</p>
<p>So he wonders. And he wonders.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>"No, dude, I'm telling you -- she's totally it."</p>
<p>Hinata throws the door to the club room open with slightly grumpier than usual Kageyama in tow (seriously, something's eating him and coming back for the leftovers) and runs into two of their kouhai having a discussion in hushed, furious whispers. "Yo!" he calls, and they whip up to look at him, completely jolted out of their intense conversation.</p>
<p>"Oh, hey, Hinata-san," responds one of them, while the other greets them both with a short bow and a casual, "'Sup?"</p>
<p>They gather up their belongings and abscond with cheery waves just as the two of them step in, leaving them alone in the club room. "She got the top mark in class and as soon as she learned that -- <em> boom, </em>pinks and oranges everywhere. Anxious colours to happy in the blink of an eye."</p>
<p>"Well, are you gonna tell her?" is the last thing Hinata is able to hear clearly as their voices fade into the distance and are caught and carried away in the day's faint breeze.</p>
<p>"Soulmate talk," muses Hinata, putting down his bag and beginning to unbutton his uniform. "To be young again!"</p>
<p>“It’s whatever,” bristles Kageyama, making quick work of changing, himself. “Do you actually care about stuff like that?”</p>
<p>“Hey, hey!” Shrugging off his dress shirt, Hinata whirls around to glare at Kageyama. “Just because you hate love doesn’t mean the rest of us do.” He hitches his sleeves down his arms and pulls it away with a flourish. “You’re telling me you’ve never wondered who yours is?”</p>
<p>It’s not really his thing, either, but sometimes it’s fun to imagine, he’ll give the universe that.</p>
<p>Hinata continues to peer at Kageyama, folding his shirt up in front of him, as the conversation pauses. After what appears to be extended deliberation (Hinata waits impatiently for the response), Kageyama pulls a t-shirt over his head and settles it at his waist.</p>
<p>“Whoever he is,” he finally says, “he’s annoyingly happy.”</p>
<p>It takes a few moments for the phrase to click in Hinata’s head. When it finally does, he freezes mid-shove of his uniform into his cubby. “He?” he echoes, eyes widening.</p>
<p>It’s not too hard to rile Kageyama up, but even though Hinata hasn’t actually done <em> anything </em>to him, his expression gets all pinched, as if in physical pain. “Well, it’s rare for soulmates to be platonic, isn’t it?!” he snaps, and Hinata wrinkles his nose at the sudden vitriol. “I’m just making an assumption!”</p>
<p>“Okay, jeez, you don’t need to shout!” Hinata complains, feeling his stomach crawl up into his chest the longer that extreme gaze stays affixed to him. “But… Kageyama, you like guys?”</p>
<p>The corner of Kageyama’s mouth twitches as he regards Hinata warily. Something about him, now, in the hunch of his shoulders and sharpness to his eyebrows, is guarded, protective. Against his usually so overpowering, confident body shines not a content, spring green, but something more dour, tinged in grey. It lights on Hinata that he’s, for once, seeing how Kageyama hesitates outside the game.</p>
<p><em> Nervous? </em> realizes Hinata. <em> Kageyama never gets nervous. Why would this make him nervous? </em></p>
<p>“What of it?” the boy in question mutters, tucking away his own uniform and turning his back to Hinata.</p>
<p>“Huh.”  </p>
<p><em> “Huh?” </em> responds Kageyama, clipped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”</p>
<p>“Nothing, nothing, I’m just surprised you’re being so honest with me today, Kageyama-kun,” chirps Hinata, patting him on the shoulder simply to move his body. The admission bothers him not for pretty simple reasons, nor is he -- when he actually takes the time to actually think on it -- surprised, since trying to imagine Kageyama holding hands with a girl is laughable. Really, him holding hands with anyone is comedic. It’s just not possible with his demeanor.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, his disclosure causes <em> something -- </em>something viscous, sickening, and fluctuating in temperature, pressing up and sloshing against his organs -- to build inside of him. He’s possessed by the desire to move for movement’s sake, and it’s different than being compelled to be on the court.</p>
<p>In that <em> something, </em>there is a muscle-paralyzing urgency. </p>
<p>He merely needs to break out of its stupor, and so he does.</p>
<p>“You know, me too,” Hinata admits, squeezing his shoulder playfully.</p>
<p>Kageyama swats his hand away, and then he pauses, eyeing Hinata in a surreptitious type of way as a moment of quiet slings in and sits between them, awkward and uncomfortable, spreading into the molecules that occupy their space.</p>
<p>“Cool,” is the brilliant reply Kageyama manages to come up with, and one that Hinata quirks an eyebrow at. “Great. Let’s stop talking about this.”</p>
<p>His stunted words, insecure as they trip past his lips, worry Hinata some, in spite of his better judgment. Obviously, considering what he’s <em> just </em> said, he takes no issue with Hinata being gay, but the abruptness makes him pout. <em> Stupid Kageyama, can’t handle feelings. </em>“I bet my soulmate is a hundred times more fun than you are,” he comments, realizing that he has yet to put on a shirt. He quickly pulls one on. “I’d put money on it!”</p>
<p>Kageyama shifts back into a kinder shade of seafoam as he scowls. “If you’re going to wager something, I’d rather it be yogurt.”</p>
<p>Hinata snorts as he shoulders his bag and Kageyama his.</p>
<p>They exit the clubroom together, and as they do, Hinata faces the world and gazes at how colours splay, like crashing waves on a quiet shoreline, around him. It’s not just one shade -- it rarely is -- that covers his present existence, even in one single blade of grass, there’s gradient upon gradient of pines to gentle pastels. He thinks it quite magical, but is certain that if he were to mention it to Kageyama, he would scoff and call him a sentimental idiot.</p>
<p>Just a hunch.</p>
<p>The sky -- which is supposed to be blue -- is dusted in fine pale clouds of gossamer that wisp across it dreamily, and Hinata can’t help but smile as the sun warms his exposed arms and glitters down on the powdery dirt underfoot. He’s not one to focus too much on stuff like this, he doesn’t believe, but when it’s already on his mind, he gets a bit sentimental for what his soulmate has given him.</p>
<p>“I worry about him, sometimes,” he mentions to Kageyama. “When we were younger, he always seemed… sad.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“I don’t think I saw bright colours for, like, a year.” Hinata squints, laying the back of his fist across his left eye, and reaching up toward the twists and turns in the sea above them with an eager and outstretched hand. He lets the rays of light mingle with his fingertips and dance down his limbs, recalling just how starkly different this sensation is to that time in junior high when, no matter what, he always felt an unrelenting, unsettling chill. It oft swept through him in tandem with the pulsing of perturbing purple that permeated entirely through his field of vision; just stepping back into the memory is enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “It’s better now, though.”</p>
<p>He wonders what changed; he was simply grateful for the shift. Whatever it was, he’s glad he’s doing well.</p>
<p>Kageyama says nothing.</p>
<p>Taking his silence as a cue to hold up the conversation on his own, Hinata puffs out his chest in a show of confidence. “So when we meet, I’m gonna make him happy!” he declares, in a theatrical sort of manner. “So there’s colours everywhere. It makes playing better… Ah, not that anything could distract me!”  </p>
<p>As he skips along, Kageyama watches him with a slightly displeased look as he ping-pongs from one topic to another. “How do you plan to do that?” he wonders aloud, still seeming to be generally unimpressed with the conversation as a whole. Even so, he's the one who's <em> continuing </em>it.</p>
<p>"How?" ...Well, that's for future Hinata to figure out and present Hinata to push off. Once one starts in on the business of trying to force happiness, it's never very lucrative, no? Those things are just supposed to come naturally, he thinks, looking up at Kageyama. "I haven't figured it out, yet!"</p>
<p>Like a thread has been snapped, Kageyama's head jerks up to face forward; rather than his attention being focused on Hinata, it goes to the straightaway. "So, like usual," he grumbles, "you're all talk."</p>
<p>Hinata elbows him in the side. Jeez! Here he is, trying to have an open, heartfelt discussion, and Kageyama is being as much of a closed door as ever. It's always <em> something </em>with him; he's never satisfied with Hinata.</p>
<p>
  <em> Kageyama, you like guys? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> What of it? </em>
</p>
<p>At some point, his left hand had closed into a fist around the strap of his satchel.</p>
<p>He lets go.</p>
<p>"And you're a jerk," he shoots back, in an attempt to unwind verbally the tension that festers, like dry rot in wood, in the depths of the muscles of his arm. Kageyama flicks him in the temple, and he lets out an offended squeak, and things are back to normal.</p>
<p>Why were they ever not?</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>And fuck, thinks Kageyama, as Hinata’s gold glow begins to strengthen as he stares wistfully at the sky, waxing about making his soulmate happy, fuck, fuck, fuck.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“Huh? Kageyama, issat you?”</p>
<p>Interrupted in the middle of the errand he’s running and pulled from his dreary thoughts, Kageyama’s eyes flicker to the source of the call, and he finds himself looking at someone he hasn’t seen in a while. “Sugawara-san? What are you doing here?” </p>
<p>The man in question is standing a few feet away, holding a plastic grocery bag, one hand in the pocket of his denim jacket. He gives Kageyama a cheeky grin as he approaches. “I thought you moved for university?” elaborates Kageyama, confused.</p>
<p>“My grandparents run a book store around here,” he explains, “so I like to visit when I have the time. Besides…” He reaches a hand up and ruffles Kageyama’s hair, smile and eyes bright as ever. “I always have the chance to run into my favourite kouhai, so I take all the opportunities I can.”</p>
<p>“It’s nice to see you,” Kageyama says, still half-absorbed in what he had been doing prior to the encounter, which was discoursing over Hinata inside his head. He seems to be doing that a lot lately. “Um, er, how has school been?”</p>
<p>Sugawara quirks an eyebrow. He has shorter hair now, notices Kageyama. “Why are you treating me so formally? I’m hurt,” he huffs.</p>
<p>“Uh, sorry.”</p>
<p>Sugawara waves a hand amicably, then shoves it in his pocket. “Come on, walk with me, talk with me. It’s been a while since I’ve seen any of you. I miss goofing off,” he reminisces, as if he were a jaded old man past his prime, and not a nineteen year old. “So? What’s up?”</p>
<p>It almost makes Kageyama want to laugh, thinking about voicing everything that’s been driving him up the wall as of late. Everything about Hinata, and soulmates, and things he has to convince himself don't matter but that crawl up the sheets of his bed and cling to him in the middle of the night as figments and pigments of his worst imaginings.</p>
<p>Something akin to self consciousness gives him pause, and he fidgets with one of the toggles of his hoodie. Sugawara's a good person, isn't he? Honest and hard-working. He hardly seems the type to judge Kageyama for how pathetic he feels.</p>
<p>It's like he can't move forward with himself, and that burbles like bile in the back of his throat, leaving an acidic aftertaste that burns as he tries to voice his troubles. </p>
<p>"I…" He looks down at his feet, then at Sugawara, and then straight ahead. "I think that Hinata might be my soulmate."</p>
<p>Out of the corner of his eye, he intently watches how Sugawara takes the news.</p>
<p>That his soulmate could be Hinata. That his soulmate could be a boy.</p>
<p>A quiet surprise lights on him, and he's silent for a few moments. "Oh," he says, finally, chin tipped up.</p>
<p>Kageyama's toggle is very interesting, actually. Something about the knot in it is mesmerizing.</p>
<p>"Yeah, I guess that makes sense."</p>
<p>"Huh?"</p>
<p>Facing him with that same easy, relaxed expression, Sugawara shrugs his shoulders, completely unbothered -- unbeknownst to Kageyama, tension unwinds from his own . "I said it makes sense. It's like, if there's anyone in this world to end up as your soulmate, it's gonna be Hinata. You two are birds of a feather," he points out, not unkindly.</p>
<p>"B-but, it's <em> Hinata, </em>" stammers Kageyama.</p>
<p>"Yeah, it's Hinata. You know what, actually?" Sugawara suddenly perks up. "What was that thing you said to him when you were first years? <em> As long as I'm here, you're invincible?" </em>he chuckles shortly to himself as Kageyama fumbles with all the things he wants to say and doesn't have the words for. "Yeah, yeah, that was, like, barely a month after you met. If you two aren't soulmates, I want some of what the universe is smoking."</p>
<p>"Sugawara-san…" Kageyama crackles like T.V static.</p>
<p>"Must be nice," hums Sugawara. "Why's that something to be freaked out over? It's not like soulmates are just for romantic partners. Sure, it's more rare for platonic soulmates, but it's not impossible," he reminds Kageyama. At the lack of response, his eyes widen slightly. "Unless…"</p>
<p>Kageyama tries -- he tries so hard to find the right thing to say, the right words to convey the storm raging inside his head, but he can't. He just can't. His voice won't work. His mouth opens and shuts with an indistinct vocalization that descends flatly into his lap, and his face starts heating up. The back of his neck and shoulders begin to pickle under Sugawara's watchful and careful countenance.</p>
<p>Sugawara's face falls from his lighthearted, teasing smile, and with it, his tone drops. Again, a brief silence forms between the two, and he leans forward, trying to make eye contact. "Oh, Kageyama," he murmurs, so meaningfully and quietly that it plunges Kageyama into ice cold water.</p>
<p>"I don't know what to do," Kageyama admits, ashamed with himself and with his cowardice. Where does Hinata get off on making him feel this jumbled up? This isn’t how things are supposed to go for him -- he attacks every challenge that comes his way, he’s always striving for self-improvement. When it comes to volleyball, he’s trying to be the best version of himself that he can be -- and what that means changes with every day that passes. He’d die before letting something get in the way of that, but…</p>
<p>With the dam broken, all of his insecurities want to rush out, but he holds his tongue. It’s like no part of his mouth is working the way it ought to, and being at a loss, not having control of his body, his <em> weapon, </em>leaves him crawling with a distinct discomfort.</p>
<p>They come to a pause at a public bench, and as Sugawara settles down into it, he pats the space next to him. Kageyama obliges. “You could always tell him,” suggests Sugawara, leaving his bag by his side and folding his hands in his lap.</p>
<p>“I can’t do that.” Kageyama can’t think of many worse fates than telling Hinata he <em> likes </em>him.</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>Kageyama stares up into buttermilk clouds. “I just can’t.”</p>
<p>Speaking of things the two of them said to each other while they were in their first year, a memory floats to the front of Kageyama’s mind -- him and Hinata, standing outside the club room before their first tournament they played in together, where Hinata promised he would fight to defeat Kageyama, regardless of how many years it took.</p>
<p>He doesn’t plan on letting that happen any time soon, but there being someone there to light that fire under him, someone who he <em> knows </em>now will pursue that end with everything in him, puts something he can’t quite describe sliding through his stomach, makes his heart thump so much louder than it’s supposed to. Hinata ties his lungs into knots and his muscles into bows, but at the same time, has become part of the reason he moves forward.</p>
<p>Kageyama decided so long ago to never break pace.</p>
<p>And there are people like <em> him </em>who don’t even let that thought come to mind.</p>
<p>Sugawara regards him, concern softening his eyes (taupe usually, a little lighter than now) sighs. “Man, you two sure are something,” he says, scratching his head. “You know, as part of teacher’s school, I’ll have to teach elementary kids as a ‘student teacher’ for my degree. I wonder if I can put you guys on my résumé.”</p>
<p>“Pardon?”</p>
<p>He leans against the back of the bench. “So you like Hinata, then?”</p>
<p>Kageyama stares down at his feet, knowing the answer and not wanting to say it, as if verbal acknowledgement will somehow speak it into existence. “You don’t need to be shy,” Sugawara continues, nudging him when he keeps his mouth shut.</p>
<p>“...Yeah,” he mumbles.</p>
<p>Giving him a comforting, supportive smile that manages to smooth over a little of Kageyama’s unease, Sugawara pats him on the knee. “Do you feel better now?”</p>
<p>“Not really.”</p>
<p>Sugawara laughs, looking not the least bit surprised. “Well, that was honest. It’s always good to be honest with people about your feelings.” When Kageyama looks up at him mournfully, he waves a hand again, as if to brush away his quickly growing list of reservations. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to try to force you to tell him, or anything.”</p>
<p>“Obviously not,” Kageyama responds. The idea of doing so makes him feel a bit winded.</p>
<p>“But does him being your soulmate have to be a bad thing?”</p>
<p>“I-- I didn’t say he <em> was, </em>I said he might be.”</p>
<p>“Potato-tomato,” Sugawara goes, ever-positive. “But I guess… You don’t have to think of it as some kind of curse, like, <em> damn it, Hinata’s my soulmate, and that ruins everything. </em> <em>”</em> As he says that, his eyes sharpen, and he drops his pitch in what Kageyama has to assume is an imitation of him. “...Which is exactly what you’re thinking, right?”</p>
<p>Kageyama has no comeback for that. Even if he did, with the way things have been going, there’s a solid 70% chance he wouldn’t have been able to get it out, either way. </p>
<p>“Bullseye,” Sugawara huffs. “The way I’m thinking about it, you don’t have to agonize over it. You don’t want to tell him? Sure, that’s your prerogative. Maybe he’s not even it, but… eh.” He shakes his wrist back and forth, making a <em> wishy-washy </em> gesture. “You definitely have a reason for thinking it, unless you just like him so much you <em> want </em>him to be your soulmate.”</p>
<p>Kageyama jerks up, scandalized, fluster streaking quickly across his face like a watercolour painting left in the rain to be ruined. “That’s not it!” he insists. “There’s just been a couple of times where…”</p>
<p>Sugawara looks to him to continue, but he didn’t have any plans on where to take that sentence.</p>
<p>“...It just seems like it’s too convenient,” he finishes, shy.</p>
<p>To Kageyama’s dismay, Sugawara brings his finger to misty eyes, pretending to wick away tears. “I’m so proud,” he chokes, clearly playing up the histrionics, “that you can talk with me about crushes like this. About Hinata. Who would’ve thought the day would come? I might actually cry.” </p>
<p>Sugawara is a good person, Kageyama reminds himself, honest and hardworking. “I don’t want this getting in the way of the team,” he tells him.</p>
<p>“You know,” Sugawara begins, “you can want things that aren’t volleyball.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>There was a point that he did, he thinks. When he was younger and lost and reaching into thin air, trying to grasp what wasn’t ever there.</p>
<p>He’s not too excited to willingly jeopardize the one thing his tiny, weak hands were able to take ahold of when the rest of his world crumbled to dust around him. Similarly, he’s not too excited to willingly jeopardize his relationship with the one person -- the first person -- who reached out and took that same scratched and marked hand without any repercussions.</p>
<p>There are few things as constant, and for so long, he’s been satisfied with that -- <em> just </em>that. Playing and improving until he can stand toe-to-toe with the greatest. To fight tooth and nail with people who throw him on his scraped knees while he’s coughing up blood on the ground, just to stay in the game. For his entire life, that’s all it really had to be </p>
<p>That’s all it had to be when his better person was a distant dream.</p>
<p>Now he’s met someone who makes him want <em> more, </em>and that scares him. He doesn’t know how to deal with more. He doesn’t know how to want.</p>
<p>He seems to be doing a pretty poor job of it so far.</p>
<p>“Life isn’t always easy,” Sugawara continues, nodding his head sagely, as if imparting great wisdom to him. “A lot of the best things in life are inconvenient. And sometimes, what we want out of life changes as we get more experience.”</p>
<p>Hinata is the dictionary definition of inconvenient, that’s for certain.</p>
<p>“I think volleyball is more important than Hinata,” Kageyama retorts flatly.</p>
<p>“Yes, yes, of course. But…” Sugawara lets go of a breath, his sentence petering off without further elaboration, tipping his head back to gaze up at the rolling expanse of the summer sky. “Kageyama, look up at the sky. What does it look like to you?”</p>
<p><em> Annoyingly happy </em>is one way to put it -- Kageyama doesn’t get to see the world as it’s supposed to be all too often. Hinata’s too bombastic for that. Case and point is today. The sky warbles above in smooth shades of cream that mix and fold into each other, laced with an unseasonal spring yellow that swirls between delicate, mellow clouds that pass, drowsily, by a sun that’s as bright as ever. They feather out at the edges, disappearing into the fine sunlight that plays upon them.</p>
<p>“Yellow,” he answers.</p>
<p>“You have such a way with words,” Sugawara muses. “I mean, look at the sky. Look at the treetops. Look at the buildings and people you pass by.”</p>
<p>“Still yellow.”</p>
<p>“Sure, but that’s not what I mean.” Sugawara’s focus travels back to Kageyama. “If Hinata’s your soulmate, the world looks like this because of him.” A whimsical sort of look crosses over him. “He gave you all of these colours-- er, sorry. All of this yellow.”</p>
<p>Kageyama squints up.</p>
<p>“And, well, you’ve given him your colours, too.”</p>
<p>
  <em> I don’t think I saw bright colours for, like, a year. </em>
</p>
<p>“I guess so,” mutters he.</p>
<p>“Ah, how romantic,” cooes Sugawara. “Don’t you think?”</p>
<p>Kageyama drags his eyes from the cotton sky, to the dandelion trees, to the golden people, and finally, to Sugawara’s shining face. “Do you know who yours is, Sugawara-san?” he asks.</p>
<p>“Eh?” Sugawara blinks. “Well… That’s a little secret. I’m not one to kiss and tell.” </p>
<p>He pulls his phone out of his pocket and glances down at it. “Ah. I have to be going. I was doing some shopping for my grandparents.” He gives Kageyama a suspiciously sheepish glance before he stands, taking ahold of the rungs of the plastic bag; Kageyama follows suit. “It was nice seeing you, though. I miss you guys.”</p>
<p>“It’s nice to see you, too,” Kageyama replies in kind.</p>
<p>“And good luck with Hinata.” Sugawara winks, making Kageyama feel all sorts of embarrassed all over again, and Sugawara pats him on the head like he used to do from time to time with a grin. “You better text me. I’ll be very mad if I don’t get any updates from you.”</p>
<p>“Uh, right.”</p>
<p>“Great, then. Later days.” He waves off Kageyama and starts in the opposite direction, leaving Kageyama just as confused and annoyed as he was with the situation, but his footsteps feel a great deal lighter as he begins walking, himself, getting lost in the great sky above him. It’s almost as if nature itself envelops him, blurring the boundaries that separate his body from the canary air.</p>
<p>What Hinata has given to him, huh?</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Something’s off with Kageyama.</p>
<p>He’s still <em> good, </em>sure, amazing, excellent, show-stopping, etcetera -- Hinata can’t imagine a universe where he’s bad at volleyball, but even with that, there’s a stiffness to his shoulders and a hesitance to the way his leg muscles twist (not that Hinata is necessarily watching his legs) that gives Hinata pause.</p>
<p>Something is just a <em> little </em>wrong. Where the puzzle pieces slot together, there’s a rough edge where there oughtn’t be.</p>
<p>But there’s a sourness to his expression that make any usual snarky retort to his behaviour die before it reaches the tip of Hinata’s tongue. So he doesn’t mention it. And it doesn’t help that the stark greys streaking across the walls of the gymnasium are harshing Hinata’s own mood.</p>
<p>During a break in practice, he eavesdrops. </p>
<p>“Is something on your mind, Kageyama?” Coach Ukai wonders in a politely low voice, speaking to Kageyama as the rest of the team wander around and chat with one another, engaging in casual conversation or practicing by themselves. Hinata deliberately takes his time in making his way to his water bottle.</p>
<p>“Nothing that’ll disrupt practice, Coach,” Kageyama responds, calm, dulcet. Ukai’s hand grips one knee as he leans forward slightly with a sigh.</p>
<p>“Not the greatest metric, but I ask because you seem a little stiff.”</p>
<p>“I stretched,” Kageyama mumbles in reply. Not looking satisfied with that as an answer, Ukai angles a little more toward him, waiting patiently for further explanation. Appearing a touch uncomfortable as he steals a quick glance to the side, playing with a fold in his shirt, Kageyama goes on in a muffled sort of way, “I’m coming up on the anniversary of my grandfather’s… passing. I guess that’s it.”</p>
<p>Hinata’s hand stills from where it was about to tip his water bottle to his lips.</p>
<p>The slightly cheerful, almost sardonic glint in Ukai's eyes slips away as if sucked down into the floor, and instead faint concern ghosts upon his countenance. "Oh." He says this a little flatly, but perhaps this was not his intention. "I had no idea. I'm sorry."</p>
<p>Kageyama shrugs his shoulders; Hinata watches carefully as he does so, seeming pressed to look Ukai in the eye. "It was a few years ago."</p>
<p>"Still." Ukai scratches his head, and suddenly, he looks very old. "Let me know if you need to take a break."</p>
<p>Reeling in private from what he's just heard, Hinata takes a swig of his drink. <em> Kageyama? Take a break from volleyball? </em>Whatever context, the very concept is ludicrous in Hinata's mind.</p>
<p>"That won't be necessary," the voice in his head says out loud, making Ukai’s face flash not with surprise, but something deeper, yet indecipherable from where Hinata is standing. "I don't… want to."</p>
<p>Some part of Hinata acknowledges his eavesdropping might be obvious at this point, but the solemnity that ties Kageyama's voice taut and worries the edges of his feelings sets that aside, and he leans against the gym wall. He watches them converse from the corner of his eye. </p>
<p>Ukai clicks his tongue. "You kids… Sometimes we deal with things we don't want to do, but... they're your feelings.” He says this as if defeat is already certain. “You're the boss."</p>
<p>Kageyama tilts his head, perplexed, before he continues to speak. "Why would it stop me from playing?"  </p>
<p>The look in Kageyama's eyes then, even when standing a whiles away from him -- made all the more frightening by the sharpness of the cold greys that pull tightly around them -- chills Hinata, and he almost drops his water bottle in spite of himself.</p>
<p>Even with the stifling air of the gymnasium and his own sweat, the beads of perspiration turn instead to droplets of ice that snake down his unprepared skin. </p>
<p>An illusion, but one that he senses so vividly.</p>
<p>It’s at that moment that Kageyama decides to take notice of him, pupils slowly moving toward him before his entire face is glanced upon by realization. “Hey, runt!” His tone changes immediately the moment he fixates on Hinata instead of his discussion with Ukai, and he punctuates this with, “What are you doing?”</p>
<p>“What?” complains Hinata, setting down his water bottle. “I’m literally just standing here.”</p>
<p>Ukai lets out a sigh as Kageyama marches over to Hinata, serious conversation forgotten in favour of razzing him. Disgruntled look about him, Kageyama puts his fists at his side, fixing Hinata up with one of his signature scowls. “You were listening,” he accuses. </p>
<p><em> Great catch, Sherlock! </em>or something similar plays on Hinata’s tongue to sling back, but the nature of the conversation he had just listened to keeps his snark inside, and he instead decides to be more honest. Sure, violent dumbass aside, that kind of thing isn’t to be joked about, Hinata thinks.</p>
<p>“Not on purpose,” he says. Well, not entirely honest. “I’m sorry,” he blurts before he has the time to think on it.</p>
<p>Face untwisted briefly as he’s taken aback, Kageyama quickly returns to his prior, somewhat pained expression, realizing that he’s referring to his grandfather’s passing, rather than the eavesdropping. “Why are you apologizing?” he mumbles, turning his head to the side so that he’s not looking at Hinata straight. “It’s not like you killed him.” </p>
<p>Hinata wrinkles his nose at Kageyama -- how he manages to stay so unnecessarily stoic even when discussing something of this nature is completely beyond Hinata, but the thunderstorm colours that surround him as if he were the very eye of it do little in setting Hinata at ease. His face -- irritated as ever -- betrays nothing, but Hinata likes to think he knows a little about Kageyama at this point. “I didn’t know,” he responds. It must have hit him harder than he has any intention of letting on.</p>
<p>Despite that, he shrugs like he were chatting about the whether. “You never asked.”</p>
<p>“Well, I am now.”</p>
<p>Kageyama shoots him a bizarre look, and Hinata remembers where they are at the moment -- he’s leaning against the wall of the gym, and Kageyama is glowering over him, the ceiling lamps framing him in cold white light that falls -- fragmented, not softly -- against his black hair and grey practice shirt. They’re also with the team; he doesn’t necessarily want to press the issue and piss Kageyama off by asking with an audience.</p>
<p>But even so. “You’re not going to stop playing, are you?” he asks, not with incredulity, but with a concern that lies clumsily in his words. He expects Kageyama’s response to be instant, like it had been with Ukai, and biting.</p>
<p>Instead, it’s after a beat that he says, “No.” No frills, no insults.</p>
<p>Struggling, suddenly, to look up at him like this, Hinata offers, “Well, good.”</p>
<p>They’re not great, really, at apologizing to one another. They promised to each other, after they lost to Seijoh in their first year, that they wouldn’t treat each other or themselves in manners they would need to apologize for. Hinata tries to come up with something to say to him -- even though he has a penchant for the aggravating, he thinks of Kageyama as his friend. He thinks of the entire team as friends, but Kageyama is a bit of a special case. Hinata… wouldn’t be here, without him. Not in this capacity, at the very least. He kind of owes it to him, but alas, any words he can think of are too big, too unnatural, to make their way out of his mouth.</p>
<p>So he slides out from beneath his frown. “Well, Kageyama-kun, just know you can always talk to me about your problems,” he tells him, holding his arms akimbo.</p>
<p>Here’s where Hinata makes another wrong assumption about what Kageyama will do -- rather than writing him off, when he turns his head, he sees that Kageyama is kind of just… staring at him, with an expression that has since shifted into something more even. In fact, he’d even say that he looks a little <em> wary.  </em></p>
<p>“Yeah,” he says after a protracted silence. “Sure.”</p>
<p>But there doesn’t seem to be any disdain in it.</p>
<p>Hinata can’t help but feel overwhelmingly impressed by his dedication. Really, there’s never a point where he’s not at least latently in awe of it, but it takes a special kind of person to persist so deftly in the face of… well, what else can you call it but tragedy? Perhaps around him swirls a profound sorrow that Hinata -- er, instead, <em> most people </em>-- cannot see. He tips his head to one shoulder, toward the court. Maybe he’s the kind of person who needs to be distracted. “So, wanna toss to me?”</p>
<p>With an expression that says, <em> why do you even need to ask, dumbass, obviously I want to toss to you </em>(Hinata may be taking some artistic liberties), they both head back onto the court together. </p>
<p>It’s in picking up a ball that Hinata notices a warmer lilt to the gym. Rather than plodding through partially moonlit streets under heavy, steel clouds, it’s more like he’s walking over stones at the seaside in the sunny midday. It’s still grey, sure, but it’s no longer hostile. There’s comfort to be found in it.</p>
<p>He wonders what happened.</p>
<p>(...And wonders.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Hinata is exhausted. </p>
<p>He’s more than that, obviously -- his mind and his bones and his <em> legs </em>are too tired to scream out in pain, and so they’re left humming something dull and monotone that vibrates through his entire body, buzzes in his head and his ears and fills him with static and cotton and rubbing alcohol.</p>
<p>He blinks at the scoreboard. Nope, it’s not wrong -- 37-35, Inarizaki’s favour, in their final set of their third round of the Spring Tournament. He hardly registers their loss, only the heat of frustration that burns in the depths of his stomach. He can’t win alone, and he didn’t lose alone, either, but even though he knows that, he tightens a fist at his side and is, for a quick moment, completely on his own within his own head.</p>
<p>Inarizaki’s <em> really, really </em>good. Even better than they were last year, and they don’t even have Aran with them anymore. The twins have improved that much, in order to cover for the sheer offensive power they lost with his graduation. And, of course, the rest of them are nothing to scoff at.</p>
<p>Hinata tries to think of something he could’ve done better. An improvement he could have made. But he played his heart out and so much beyond that. When he breathes, as they go to shake hands with Inarizaki, he tastes iron.</p>
<p>Inarizaki was just that <em> little </em>bit better than them. The six they are now, and the six Inarizaki have -- only one of those groups gets to move onto the next round.</p>
<p>That frustration in his stomach catches the oxygen he gulps for, and that oxidation spirals it back into his hunger and his desire he never could have possibly lost. The ferocity of that (not so entirely) simple emotion compels him forward through the gamut of the victors.</p>
<p>Atsumu says something to him, but it doesn’t totally register. He replies with a thanks, and a compliment of his own, which the setter preens at. Their conversation doesn’t last too long, though, because Kageyama pulls him away to go regroup with their team, and he waves his farewell.</p>
<p>“Get it together,” Kageyama snaps at him.</p>
<p>“I’m together, I’m together,” Hinata responds, glancing up at Kageyama from below drooping eyelids.</p>
<p>Even the colours that paint over him seem to reflect how Hinata is feeling -- a subtle, but impassioned garnet that pools in the angles of his face in darker shades and plays with the winking ceiling lights as sweat. His cheeks are a deep, haunting maroon that flushes down his neck and extends even to the palms he wipes discreetly on his shorts.</p>
<p>Although he must be feeling that same disappointment, experiencing the same reaction to something so soul-crushing, he doesn't let it show.</p>
<p>But Hinata knows. He knows more about Kageyama than he thought possible at one point in time, and he can tell by the furrow in his brow, the tightness of his skin where his jawline bends, just how violently this loss is tearing him inside, as well.</p>
<p>Kageyama can't hide anything from him.</p>
<p>Some of the first years are crying -- Hell, some of the third years are crying, because this was their <em> last chance </em>, and Hinata brings his hand over his eyes, wiping away the beginning of angry tears as well as the sweat that's everywhere. Each place his fingertips graze, it seems like there's more and more of it, piling up endlessly.</p>
<p>"How do you feel?" he asks Kageyama as the team gathers their things and prepares to leave the gymnasium. He glances up at Yachi, who’s doing her very best, as the team’s sole manager, to keep it together, but her smile wobbles like bands of light across the nighttime sea as she comforts their kouhai.</p>
<p>“They won by having the better team,” answers Kageyama, whose eyes follow Inarizaki from across the net.</p>
<p>“What the Hell?” Hinata mutters. “Why aren’t you mad?”</p>
<p>But he is. Hinata knows he is. They both practiced so much, <em> every single one of them </em>worked their asses off to get to this point, and to have it end so suddenly, devoid of any bells and whistles or grace, only them and their heaving lungs and trembling legs, leaves Hinata with no possible way to articulate all that roils within him.</p>
<p>He’s glared down at with a dour expression -- hardly one of apathy, contorted with the most concentrated essence of crimson Hinata can see in the whole room. “I’m pissed.” Offering a glance toward their third years, those who they will be losing come the turn of the next school year, he frowns, but not in a necessarily forlorn manner. “I wanted… to win. With everyone.” He says this last part a little later, but not as an afterthought. In fact, his voice strains on the word <em> everyone, </em> and it makes Hinata’s own throat hot <em> .  </em></p>
<p>“Yeah,” Hinata murmurs. “Me, too.”</p>
<p>Suddenly, Nishnoya shoots out from the crowd of the team and asserts himself, hands on confident hips, staring with eyes hard as twin topaz. Hinata’s eyes widen.</p>
<p>“Alright, alright, what’s with the funeral procession?” he complains. “You don’t need to look like you’re in mourning!”</p>
<p>“Noya-san, you should let Ennoshita talk,” Tanaka begins, but Ennoshita shakes his head, putting a hand on Tanaka’s shoulder. </p>
<p>“Let ‘im speak. It’ll be his last time to make a grand, inspiring speech.” As he speaks, he smiles, in a sad sort of way. He gestures aggrandizingly. “The floor is yours.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, Chikara.” Nishnoya does a mock bow. “Anyway! You all need to look more lively! None of this <em> oh no, we lost, it’s all over! </em> defeatist attitude!” With a glare sharp enough to cut diamond, he makes a few of the first years flinch, blazing in bright and bold pigments. “I wanna see you guys get majorly super pissed off at Inarizaki! Say, <em> you may have gotten us this time, Atsumu, but not next year! We’ll wipe the floor with you! </em>”</p>
<p>“The twins are graduating this year,” Kinoshita reminds him tepidly.</p>
<p>“See? None of you be like Hizashi.” Nishinoya blows out air from his lips. “Speak it from your chest! What are you holding back?!”</p>
<p>He waits expectantly.</p>
<p>“I… I…” A first year -- Onogi -- speaks up. “I want to win! I want to win and say we were the best team in the country!”</p>
<p>“Good! Next!”</p>
<p>Hinata jumps in, grabbing at the front of his shirt for the sake of having something to hold onto. “I wanted to stand on the court longer! I wanted to make up for not being there last year!”</p>
<p>“Nice, nice, Shouyou, now you’re getting it! Next!”</p>
<p>“What he said,” Kageyama puts in, side-eyeing Hinata in a particularly infuriating way. “Except I didn’t get sick.”</p>
<p>Hinata smacks him on the shoulder, hard, and Kageyama shoves him in retaliation.</p>
<p>“Go! Go!” yells Nishinoya, holding his chin up in a show of unwavering pride. “I want to hear from everyone! Everyone,” he stipulates, narrowing his eyes at the third years. “And you, too, Yacchan!” When he whips around to focus that unbreakable glare on her, she lets out a squeak of surprise.</p>
<p>Nishinoya stands, Ukai and Takeda watching on, like a lighthouse in the storm, coaxing out everyone’s goals and wishes from their tear-stricken and mahogany-angry faces. He draws it out of the entire team, and by the end of his teammates’, his <em> friends’ </em>spiels, Hinata’s stomach feels so much lighter, and all of him feels about ready to take flight. His heart hammers in the aftermath like a caged bird, desperate to be freed of its shackles.</p>
<p>Head falling into his shoulders, Nishinoya laughs to himself. “There, there. We’re leaving the club in good hands, gang.” He offers a passing glance to the third years -- Tanaka is a mess of waterworks. “Tell me what you're going to do next year!"</p>
<p>"Win!"  screams the team, through and because of their blood (Hinata tastes it in the back of his throat), sweat (which still pours in incessant droves) and tears (the rims Hinata's eyelids burn with his passion).</p>
<p>Hinata’s gaze track up to Kageyama's face, hearing his voice shout just as loudly and proudly as the rest of them, and he is not taken aback by what he sees, but yet, it startles him all the same. </p>
<p>He is ebullient like rising, gurgling magma; his eyes, so deep and sullen in so many other iterations, shine bright with the molten, bubbling rock that runs through him and blazes below his skin, everywhere from his hairline and down past his uniform, into his legs and toes and the floor around him. Within him smolders something so powerful, so hot, that Hinata nearly feels the eruption singe his arm, which causes him to become suddenly, disturbingly aware of how close together they’re standing for the flickers to reach him.</p>
<p>He takes the colours around him and renews them, makes them his own, turns them into something so much <em> more, </em>so much greater. Rather than being the canvas, he is the artist; he wields the world by his own hands. Hands that he uses to toss to Hinata -- hands that have gotten him, gotten them both, so far.</p>
<p>He’s mesmerizing.</p>
<p>...He’s beautiful.</p>
<p>And then, without warning, Hinata loses his ability to speak, but not by virtue of his exhaustion or his parched, rasping throat.</p>
<p>All he can do is look up, completely flummoxed, at Kageyama.</p>
<p>As if sensing his shameless staring, Kageyama angles his head down to meet his eyes. “What are you looking at?” he complains, screwing up his face. In a flash, his serious, captivating expression slips away, but Hinata isn’t any less entranced. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes to mind. Nothing productive, anyway. He’s completely at a loss.</p>
<p>“Ah… nothing.” He snaps his maw shut with vigour and faces forward. Even like this, though, arms pin-straight by his side and body rigid, refusing to spare Kageyama his slightest glance, he feels Kageyama’s own gaze linger on the side of his face for a few heartbeats longer, before the prickling on the back of his neck ceases and they start to walk out of the gym. Even like this, he’s uncomfortably <em> cognizant </em>of the way Kageyama’s moving, the sound of his breaths, the shuffling of his clothes and the weight of his footfalls. </p>
<p>It’s like he’s entirely on edge; his head aches, and not from physical exertion and the fact that he really, <em> really </em>needs to eat something.</p>
<p>Somehow, he feels awkward and unsure and <em> shy </em>in this flesh and blood, this body that was once his greatest setback and that he’s now polishing into his finest weapon.</p>
<p>Something isn’t right.</p>
<p>And while they take their leave, chins held high, refusing to wallow in despair, he randomly recalls how he squirmed during romance dramas in his childhood and how his parents would chuckle about colours he was too young to understand.</p>
<p>In this building filled with warmth and desire and passion and <em> hunger, </em>he begins to feel very, very cold.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Their first practice in the wake of the loss, Kageyama takes Hinata’s wrist to lead him somewhere, and he lurches back with astonishment to the extent that he breaks out of his grasp. Kageyama flips around to look at him with a raised eyebrow, and a fluster stretches up from his chest to sit restlessly in his cheeks. Suddenly dumbstruck and cursing himself for it, he watches Kageyama’s expression change from inquisitive to mildly annoyed.</p>
<p>“What’s your damage?” he questions.</p>
<p>Hinata sorely wishes he could tell Kageyama what exactly <em> is </em>his damage. He used to just be filled with a certain type of ambivalence whenever Kageyama would grab him or jerk him about roughly; he has long since accepted this violent side of him that doesn’t seem to know how to use his words.</p>
<p>But because of their game with Inarizaki, and the way he looked after... It’s hardly been a full day, but the memory seems already to be burned into his brain, branded across his memories, and it flickers back and forth in his consciousness as he looks up at Kageyama like a scared prey animal.</p>
<p>Where Kageyama had touched him, his skin burns, not dissimilar to an allergic reaction, and he’s too focused on that unfortunate truth to try and come up with something useful or related to say. Something’s gone wrong with his wiring. He shouldn’t be acting like this, not with Kageyama. He shouldn’t be thunderstruck by what he once accepted without issue.</p>
<p>Kageyama is brash and stupid and talented and pretty and dumb and Hinata <em> isn’t </em>supposed to like him.</p>
<p>Even thinking this makes his heart shoot up, and it hangs in his windpipe.</p>
<p>The longer that Kageyama’s waiting for an answer, the longer that he’ll be staring at him so intently, and so, Hinata clears that blockage from his throat, and starts off with, “Can’t you just tell me we’re going somewhere without dragging me around?”</p>
<p>But it’s odd.</p>
<p>His wrist <em> stings, </em>he feels like he’s been shocked, and yet… His gaze flitters down to Kageyama’s hands in spite of that, and this is where his life begins to slide even further into irrevocable, unequivocal amounts of totally screwed.</p>
<p>Because he comes to the realization that he’s lying.</p>
<p>Hinata doesn’t think he’s a very complicated person. He lives his life in as straightforward a way as he can manage. He does what he wants to, and he trains dutifully, and he’s learned, in his second year, to pace himself (lest he repeat the end of their first Spring Tournament), but still enjoy little pleasures as they come along. </p>
<p>Point being, he doesn’t let anything hold him back. If there’s something in this world that he wants -- be it to play volleyball, or to make friends with someone, or to buy a meat bun at the Sakanoshita Store, he goes for it without hesitation.</p>
<p>But now he wants that hand back on him.</p>
<p>
  <em> Oh, crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap!  </em>
</p>
<p>He looks at Kageyama as he internally crumbles.</p>
<p>
  <em> Becoolbecoolbecool-- </em>
</p>
<p>“Uh, whatever,” Kageyama says brusquely, seeming more weirded out than anything. <em> Yeah, that makes two of us, buddy! </em> It really, really doesn’t help that they’re here early, and they’re some of the only members here -- since the season is technically over, practice isn’t really all too mandatory anymore, but enough of them still show up. “Then come here. I wanted to talk about something Miya-san did during our game,” he continues, still curt, tilting his head as he takes off in a brisk stride.</p>
<p>With his eyes off of Hinata, he exhales, and hurries after him in a fit.</p>
<p>He’s been uncomfortably aware of Kageyama’s appearance for a while now. A number of girls in his class seem to (mistakenly) think he’s some sort of pretty boy heartthrob, and <em> sure, </em>he’s tall and lean and has this cool, stoic (completely embarrassing) aura about him, but he never felt anything regarding that save vague exasperation (and delicious schadenfreude whenever he did something idiotic in front of them and proved the kind of person he was).</p>
<p>All of this is so new to him, and what sparked it <em> wasn’t </em>that tall, lean, pretty boy shtick, it was how he faced their adversity, how he didn’t accept but resolved to fight with force and ferocity against the eventuality of loss, how beautiful he looked not because of his physicality, but rather, the essence that drummed, ceaselessly and evenly, below it.</p>
<p>Who and what he is, instead of the boy he appears to be, spurred on this… this… <em> desire, </em>in Hinata, one that lights the lining of his stomach on fire with no single way to safely extinguish it, and so it spreads, careening through his insides with an almost painful voracity that grows ever more unpleasant the more he fixates on it. It fills him a bleary heat that he can’t stand.</p>
<p>“What is it? He did a lotta stuff,” he responds weakly.</p>
<p>If nothing else, he can’t let this show to Kageyama. He can deal with this. Heck, his entire career up until this point has been about defying the odds and shaking up the status quo! This itty-bitty-tiny-little big problem is no sweat for him, he tells himself, and it instills a touch of confidence within him as he comes to stand beside Kageyama.</p>
<p>Yeah. Yeah! He can do this. Liking Kageyama is just another tall, tall wall, another hurdle for him to scrabble over, and there’s yet to be one of those he didn’t manage to climb over with due patience and hard work.</p>
<p>He doesn’t have to let this consume him; in fact, he refuses to let that come to fruition. Because… well, there’s no way Kageyama could be his soulmate. Someone like him? It just doesn’t track, logically. He remembers his conversation with Kageyama about that very same thing, and how he had mentioned that his was probably a romantic one, just going off of probability. Most likely, it’s the same for him.</p>
<p>And people oftentimes get together or get married to people who aren’t their soulmate, but if Hinata is going to let himself be distracted by fancies of romance, it’s got to be them, right?</p>
<p>This Kageyama thing -- yeah, that’s how he’ll think of it -- is but a challenge.</p>
<p>Even if he can’t cut these feelings out completely, he can probably allay them a little. </p>
<p>Right?</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>When Kageyama’s hand brushes against Hinata’s thigh as they settle onto the bench in their third year, it feels like he’s been shot. His ears ring as if the bullet whizzed past his ear and nicked the lobe, and the scent of gunpowder drifts as smoke around him.</p>
<p>Kageyama brings a wrist across his mouth, wiping away sweat and stray drops of water as he sets down his water bottle at his side, right between where the two of them are sitting. The knuckles of his fist graze where the bench has hiked Hinata’s shorts up slightly, and his stomach clenches.</p>
<p>They’re in the middle of a practice match with a school from their prefecture, one they’ve played only a few times during tournaments. They’re between the second and third set, now, and Ukai is giving them a basic strategy talk as they wait to play again. Hinata never likes to allow himself to become distracted while they’re mid-game, but against his wishes, his attention wanders.</p>
<p>His eyes travel from Kageyama’s ankles, up past his legs -- thick, powerful -- and across shorts that seem way too small all of a sudden. His torso is covered by his t-shirt and his pinny, but Hinata’s spent enough time in a change room with him to fill in the gaps, and his arms are lined with well-defined muscle that fills out his sleeves in an entirely too engrossing way. One of his hands is still lying right at Hinata’s thigh, sending shock waves that tear through his organs like lightning, and the other plays with a ruffle at the bottom of his pinny, rolling mesh fabric between his thumb and forefinger.</p>
<p>His skin is glanced upon by a thin layer of sweat that flushes his face, makes it a slightly darker shade of the inoffensive ruddy orange the rest of the gym is decorated in. It looks a lot better on him than the walls or the floor. His eyebrows -- sloped downward in a determined furrow -- pull his face into his trademark scowl, sharp features accented by his serious expression, and make him look scarily like a piece of fine art. Even when he’s flustered and sweaty. Actually, especially because of that. There’s a pout to his lips that causes Hinata’s brain to unhelpfully supply the impulse to grab his shirt collar and kiss him silly. He laces his fingers together to fight off the anxious, wanton tremble to his hands.</p>
<p>It’s too much. He can’t be thinking these things even now. He can’t let this completely innocuous, casual touch throw him into this kind of tizzy. He can’t want Kageyama, because he’s <em> Kageyama, </em>and that’s crazy, right? </p>
<p>It’s crazy until he has to bite down, <em> really hard, </em>to fend off intrusive thoughts of those fingerprints leaving unwashable marks all over his body, winking bruises that dance across his aching and desperate skin.</p>
<p>...Well, it’s not that they’re <em> unwashable, </em>it’s just that Hinata wants them to remain there forever.</p>
<p>“...Hinata? Are you listening to me?” He’d been listening best he could, honest, but it takes Ukai calling his name to completely jolt him from his foolish, indulgent fantasies. Fantasies he never wanted but can’t seem to stop slipping into nowadays.</p>
<p>“Yes, coach!” he blurts, but his tongue feels way too big for his mouth. “Watch out for their number 7 but don’t let yourself get swept up by him!”</p>
<p>Kageyama’s eyes flicker to him, and he feels like he’s been doused in gasoline and tossed into a field of strike pads and matches.</p>
<p>“Hinata seems a little, ah, <em> distracted, </em> <em>”</em> Tsukishima puts in from the other side of the bench. Hinata growls at him; Yamaguchi does his due captainly duties and elbows him in the side.</p>
<p>Ukai gives Hinata a stern look. “Focus on what’s in front of you,” he instructs.</p>
<p>“Yes!”</p>
<p>When they get up to retake their place on the court, Hinata can finally breathe again; the air he takes in wobbles on its way into his lungs and tastes of metal as it claws down his throat. It’s time for volleyball. He can’t let anything get in the way of that. He can’t go around spinning his delusions about the person who let him get this far in the first place.</p>
<p>“Hey,” the worst person ever in question says, clapping him on the shoulder. Same result -- needles, somehow hot and cold at the same time, piercing his skin. “Get it together.”</p>
<p>His eyes -- cobalt blue, but not at this moment -- are narrowed in distaste. Kageyama smiles more than he used to, but that isn’t saying a lot. Hinata wonders what it would be like if he were to smile all the time.</p>
<p>“I know, I know, jeez.” Hinata shrugs him off, trying his damndest to keep his shit together. “It’s not important.”</p>
<p>Kageyama cocks his head, and his gun.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>At 18 years old, Kageyama glares at himself in the mirror as he stills in brushing his hair, which is a chore that takes, at most, eight seconds.</p>
<p>The tense lavenders of his bathroom had been slowly fading into a more hostile violet as the seconds ticked on, but now, with the faint scent of aftershave in his nose and comb in hand, they completely plummet off the side of the cliff into deep, dark indigo. It’s a cold, cold colour, a lonely sort of one, that crawls up his legs and slicks him, like tar, to the laminate tiles below.</p>
<p><em> Hinata, </em>he thinks, panicked and reaching for his phone in his pocket, before that very action makes him freeze.</p>
<p>What’s going to happen if he messages Hinata? What’s he going to say? <em> Hey, sorry, but everything just went dark and I know you’re my soulmate and I’m worried about you. </em>Like Hell, supplies his more cynical side, he’s not going to admit that. Not right now.</p>
<p>Kageyama doesn’t even text him that often, anyway. What’ll that say about him, suddenly sending a text at 6:48 A.M (though, he supposes, for Hinata it’ll be P.M -- it took him far too long to remember the timezone difference), just a casual, <em> hey, what’s up? </em>He can seldom think of something more uncharacteristic than that, and the inclination, that impulse that seized the muscles of his hand and made them move before he could think to do so leaves him feeling unsettled and awkward in the privacy of his own house.</p>
<p>Almost like the universe is laughing at him. He grits his teeth.</p>
<p>His fingers close around his phone despite his better judgement, but he doesn’t withdraw it.</p>
<p>He’s worried about Hinata. He doesn’t want to be -- he wants to trust in him, to believe in him, like Hinata always did him, but yet his misgivings slink in from the corners of his brain and attack. And even when he has more important things to discourse over or focus on, <em> he </em>always stubbornly makes his way to the forefront of his mind like it was what he was born to do.</p>
<p>Hinata’s fine in Brazil, he has to tell himself, he’s training and getting better and I have to get better, too, because if there’s one thing about Hinata, it’s that he refuses to give up.</p>
<p>He wants to think about more important things.</p>
<p>But the issue wherein is that Hinata is important to him, too. More important than he could’ve thought possible. So important that he’s left boondoggling in the middle of his bathroom like it’s something to do, debating over whether to call him or text him or tell him everything he’s done to him.</p>
<p>Before everything; before soulmates and indigo rooms and the syncopated beat of his heart, Hinata is his partner. His rival. His <em> best friend, </em>for God’s sake.</p>
<p>And he hasn’t yet figured out how to reconcile that irrefutable fact with this romance.</p>
<p>He was hoping that some time apart -- both of them striving for the top on opposite sides of the globe, where he didn’t see Hinata every day for hours on end and he was among a different team -- would do him some good. He’d be able to figure out his feelings, and find what he was planning to do when they met up in some years’ time.</p>
<p>Because he can’t go on with this inside of him forever.</p>
<p>(He doesn’t want to; he doesn’t think he can.)</p>
<p>And yet, his heart and his mind are as tied up as ever. In fact, this may very well end up worse than the alternative. He’s all muddled up inside and nothing is as clear and as straight as it was, when he was 15 and he had some kid he met about an hour ago declare he was going to reign victorious with a face covered in snot and tears.</p>
<p>Because Kageyama misses Hinata.</p>
<p>He’s missed a lot of things in his life, he’s missed his grandfather and his sister and when things were simpler, kinder, and he’s missed Karasuno and their senpai who went on to graduate, but this is different. Not even necessarily in its magnitude, but in the unyielding, powerful desire that thrums behind it, that forces it to consume his waking moments.</p>
<p>Desire so frightening, fast, and foreign that he can hardly bear to cogitate over it for too long.</p>
<p>It’s not that he wants Hinata more than he wants, say, to be on a Division 1 team, or to be in the Olympics, or any number of uncountable goals pertaining to volleyball, it’s that his want is so different it sickens him.</p>
<p>And there’s nothing, in this dreary, dreary room, that he can seem to do about it.</p>
<p>All he can dedicate himself to is this sport, so that he can have no regrets, and he can face Hinata, fully and with everything that makes him up, come the future.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>(Hinata’ll be okay.</p>
<p>It’s just really hard to be away from home.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The beach this morning is painted gently in fine pink, as if the colour itself was crushed up using a mortar and pestle and scattered all at the water’s edge. The sea licks at Hinata’s toes, and the familiar underfoot squish of wet, muddy sand makes him feel almost like a kid on summer vacation again, when Natsu was just a tiny baby strapped to his father’s chest and he was racing along with his arms like an airplane.</p>
<p>Except for the fact that it’s 6:12 A.M, and he’s in Brazil.</p>
<p>He’s still getting used to the tropical climate even after some half a year, and he’s warmed through his skin and bones during the sun’s ascent, even here, walking through the breeze of the sea. Japan definitely wasn’t like this. Pedro said the weather was supposed to be warming up, but he hardly noticed the temperature dip in the first place, and he’s still comfortable in a pair of shorts and a cotton t-shirt, plodding along the shoreline with his arms pin-straight in a t-position at his sides (some things never change), his shoes and socks dangling over the water in his right hand.</p>
<p>Coming down to the beach like this, while not yet a part of his daily routine, has started to become something he does more and more often. It’s a lot quieter than it is during the evenings and especially during the day, even if it’s far from empty. Some folks are swimming, others simply relaxing.</p>
<p>No one’s really out playing at this hour.  It makes his palms itch, but… no! He has to maintain his self-control! These calm moments of relaxation and contemplation are <em> just </em>as important as being in the middle of a game! Rest is imperative!</p>
<p>He gazes out over how the light shimmers over breaking, rolling waves that glint magenta and pale pink depending on how the young rays dapple upon them, and smiles a little to himself. Pink is a rare one for him to see -- nowadays, he’s become well-versed in intense, bright reds and shocking yellows. Colours of determination and spirit, if he does say so himself. What he’s looking out at is mellow, and his soulmate is decidedly not that. Hinata’s used to pure saturation, if his last twenty years are anything to go off of.</p>
<p>He must be having a pleasant time. Hinata’s surroundings match his own feelings, as well. </p>
<p>It’s like they’re truly one! </p>
<p>He shakes his head, waiting for these thoughts to pass so he can come back to himself. In the mornings, he likes to meditate on his purpose… or, rather, he’s learned to. The years he spent in high school being called thoughtless or klutzy or dull-witted are something for him to scoff at, now. <em> Suck it, Tsukishima and Kageyama</em>, he thinks smugly to himself, <em> if only they could see me now. Then they wouldn’t be able to say </em> anything <em> snarky! </em></p>
<p>His mind sticks, looking at waves that waver at his wobbling feet, on Kageyama.</p>
<p>It’s been a bit since the Olympics, which means he’s back in Japan, training with the Adlers. When Hinata has the time, he catches live coverage of his games (or he watches footage when he can; he can see how Kageyama’s improved, but the vice versa doesn’t track, so in a fun sort of way, it’s like Hinata has the advantage. And he’s teammates with <em> Ushijima, </em>of all people!), and they message from time to time. Speaking of him and Tsukishima, neither two tend to be that active in the chat his graduating year from the team has, and he doesn’t like to respond to the fun quiz links that Hinata sends him, but he’s not one to give up.</p>
<p>Through the fire and the flame and Kageyama being a bad texter he will persist.</p>
<p>Oh! That’s right! It’s Kageyama’s birthday today!</p>
<p>He’s struck with the urge to message him and congratulate him on finally joining the ranks of adulthood like the rest of them, but he doesn't have his phone on him, just his watch.</p>
<p>But besides that, it is already evening for him, anyhow. He's been 20 for several hours, and Hinata pouts at no one in particular for no particular reason. Maybe his team has carted him off to a bar for celebration -- drunk Kageyama is a thought that makes him huff with laughter. It'd do him some good to chill out. It doesn’t matter that he’s taller, Hinata can <em> definitely </em>hold his alcohol better. Maybe he’ll pose a challenge the time they next meet.</p>
<p>His forward momentum peters off, and his feet come to a pause at the wave's wake, his left trailing slightly behind his right.</p>
<p>He misses Kageyama.</p>
<p>He misses everyone, with his whole heart, but it's Kageyama who makes his hand crawl up the front of his shirt and clutch the fabric with purpose, and his jaw tightens as the pigmented breeze coming off the sea wreaths around his ankles and whispers to the unevenly tanned skin that wraps his bones.</p>
<p>He sinks down into the sand and flops onto his back, fall cushioned by the press of something that still has yet to be fully warmed and that forms around his body, sighing. It's laundry day today, anyhow, but he's long since known at this point that no matter <em> what </em>you do, sand gets everywhere, and it doesn't like to leave.</p>
<p>He stares up into the rosy, awakening sky as his chest opens with a deep breath.</p>
<p>It's nice this morning. Everything around him is calm, which he appreciates during these meditative periods. He doesn't always meditate the same way, or focus on the same things, or even necessarily do the same breathing exercises, but the splashing at his feet and tickling of his toes has become a constant.</p>
<p>Reaching up at cotton candy clouds, he thinks that it's not always nice. </p>
<p>The colours, he means.</p>
<p>Hinata once believed that love was sweet. Watching his parents interact he thought it something kind and something gentle. Something gradual and soul healing, thought he once. He’s never been the most romantic of people. At least, he never used to be.</p>
<p>He was loved so violently by the universe.</p>
<p>Is that what you could call romance?</p>
<p>These changes in colour weren’t sweet or kind or gentle. Sometimes they passed subtly, but most times they were sudden, jarring, an upset. Without consent, his world was tossed upside down with all the care shown to a crumpled wad of newspaper, all by someone he didn’t even <em> know. </em>He was assigned this fate, be it by God or by demon, to live this double existence alongside a person whom he is never even certain to meet.</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s so frustrating he wants to cover his eyes and roll back and forth in this sand, screaming, just to vent. But that’s not a part of his training regimen, though perhaps he could incorporate it into his meditation.</p>
<p>He grabs a fistful of pink, seaside air, and lets it settle to his abdomen, where he uncurls his fingers, letting it escape against him.</p>
<p>Whomever this soulmate person is -- they’re not the one presently on his mind. They’re not the one presently in his heart. Hinata is no stranger to natural disadvantages and unfair circumstances, but it’s a little messed up that who he’s tied to is tied to him.</p>
<p>When that’s not who he wants.</p>
<p>His hands snake up to his face and he presses the balls of his palms into his eyelids, letting out a sigh. It’s stupid! This is all so stupid! Kageyama is stupid, he’s stupid as ever, and it’s <em> so </em> impossibly stupid that, no matter how hard he pushes, Hinata can’t oust his face from his mind. He can't help but have images of the idiotic, dumb, <em> stupidstupidstupid </em>man from passing, like a broken and skipping DVD, through his head.</p>
<p>When they meet again, Hinata thinks mutinously as a sandy hand grates over his fluster, he's going to show Kageyama the what's what. It’s the least that he deserves.</p>
<p>His fingers press into the sensitive, tender skin just below his bottom lip, feeling the peach fuzz on his chin he hasn't gotten around to shaving.</p>
<p>He closes his eyes, and doused in lovely and shimmering primroses and fuschias, he imagines Kageyama's weight on him.</p>
<p>The only noise there is is the waves crashing against him and the beating of his own heart, as he lets his hand roam down his neck, across his collarbone, and slowly, ever so slowly, down his torso. It pauses over his navel, and his palm closes around his stomach. He feels his breaths, deep and even, circulate through his entire body, travelling through his blood.</p>
<p>He lets the breeze touch him in the way he wishes Kageyama would, across every line of his skin and up under his loose clothes.</p>
<p>...Augh! No! He’s getting distracted! He’s going to absolutely <em> destroy </em> Kageyama when he gets back home, not the other way around. And part of how he’s going to achieve his total victory is by <em> focus </em> and <em> diligence.  </em></p>
<p>Not by worrying over things like this.</p>
<p>Not by virtue of the shudder that trips down his neck thinking of Kageyama calling him his given name in a voice of paradise pink that peels down his limbs and runs off into the infinity that is the glowing sea. </p>
<p>Why of all people, do it have to be Kageyama? His face scrunches up as if staring directly into the sun, miffed by his own attraction.</p>
<p>(Of course, Hinata should know the answer to <em> why</em>, because his desire to win, to best Kageyama, to stand on that very same stage as him and grasp victory, burns so bright inside him. To raise his fist against the incarnation of talent and brilliance and tell him <em> I’ve defeated you like I promised </em> is part of the reason he’s here <em> . </em>That wish is just as, if not more, strong as what he’s presently feeling.</p>
<p>They’re inosculated, inseparable emotions in his heart and in his head.</p>
<p>No matter what he tries to deny, it’s more powerful than he could ever hope to assuage. He wants to beat him, wants it so bad.)</p>
<p>That’s right. Because what they have is beyond soulmates and love and any other indecipherable emotions.</p>
<p>After months and years of thinking of ways to abate this desire, of trying to control how he feels to no fruitful end, this mindset is what he’s chosen to coexist with it. Rather than ruin himself with fancies of pure destruction, he’s funneled these feelings into his wish (which isn’t so far off, now), to win, and to prove himself.</p>
<p>It would be funny, though, if Kageyama <em> were </em>, by some glitch in the universe, his soulmate. Weren’t soulmates supposed to be two of a kind, people who immediately fall for each other and complement the other’s each and every movement? Kageyama is decidedly not that. He’s a thorn in Hinata’s side and he probably always will be, in spite of everything they’ve done together, and in spite of all that he feels.</p>
<p>But using two fingers, he pushes down, gently, on his lips, and wonders. Wonders about that glitched reality. Wonders about that life.</p>
<p>And he wonders. And wonders. And wonders.</p>
<p>It’s then that the timer on his watch goes off.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>(And on the morning of the greatly anticipated Schweiden Adlers V.S Black Jackals game, two people wake up to brilliant whites and yellows and kind oranges and agitated summer greens, colours that can’t seem to settle, much like their beating hearts and shaking hands as the time for them to see each other once again approaches.</p>
<p>When they do, in that hallway that feels so impossibly nostalgic, they can’t help that their elation outweighs their ability to necessarily notice the colours around them -- well, Kageyama picks up on it, but the other, who hasn’t quite fully realized how far his feelings extend, is brimming with too much enthusiasm to care for the aesthetics.</p>
<p>But it’s been so many years; his realization is well overdue.</p>
<p>It’s the right time, now, is it not?)</p>
<p>+</p>
<p>When Hinata floats down from the net as the impact of Bokuto’s spike resounds through the entire gym and bounces off and rattles the walls, he feels like he’s doing just that -- <em> floating. </em></p>
<p>Completely weightless, fully liberated and wholly unbound by the constraints of what his physical body should allow, he drifts through the air as if he were no person at all; it is as if he is a mess of photons, tied together with the wide grin that dances upon him, and when his feet touch the ground, it doesn’t even get through to him. </p>
<p>It’s just him, in that small piece of time, him and their win and the adrenaline high.</p>
<p>Then it rushes in -- the screams of the audience and the cheers of the team, making the very floor vibrate with the energy that takes off inside the room, filling the area with something so incredible Hinata can hardly withstand it. A sudden dizziness plays with his head while he comes back to himself, and the desperate breath he sucks in makes his vision wink out for just a second.</p>
<p>He won. They <em> won. </em>And in the electricity that brings the air to life, he catches Kageyama’s eye from across the net, but the world is so devastatingly bright he can hardly see him.</p>
<p>Even in that blinding light, even in that ruthless assault on the senses, he finds Kageyama’s smile. He finds the one thing more radiant than the whirlwinding colours. He finds his unyielding beauty and he finds his soulmate.</p>
<p>...Ah.</p>
<p>There can only be one explanation for this intensity, at this exact point in time. And the darkness. And how it was allayed and remained there.</p>
<p>And the million other inconsequential, little things, tiny happenstances that Hinata couldn’t think, <em> didn’t think, </em> anything of, but that hit him in a flurry of memories nonetheless, of fragments of their relationship he didn’t even necessarily think he was building. A relationship he built in <em> spite </em>of, not because of, who his soulmate could possibly be.</p>
<p>But, well, there’s no other answer, now, is there? thinks Hinata, in unparalleled wonder and awe, as Kageyama shifts in platinum white and dazzling golds that stoke and stir with every slight movement. There’s no distinction between his body and what’s around him; at the edges, he becomes hazy, and everything that he is bleeds into Hinata’s world and fills the surrounding area and everywhere beyond that with his incredible vitality and his beaming expression.</p>
<p>Staring at him now -- staring at him in the warzone of their promised land, battered and bruised and brimming with emotions so mighty he can’t possibly begin to sort through all of them, he realizes, with annoyance, that Kageyama is his soulmate, and has been since the day he was born and he first opened his eyes to the reality of the partnered world he was given life in.</p>
<p>Knowing that would have made a lot of different things leaps and bounds easier, an irritated brain supplies, and he ought to give him a piece of his mind for pussyfooting around all of this for so long, but in this moment, he’s utterly dumbstruck, and is compelled by nothing except the desire to be held by his soulmate, his Kageyama.</p>
<p>To feel those powerful arms (he’s even <em> bigger </em> and <em> taller </em>than he was when they were kids, and he was a freak to begin with, so he didn’t even think it possible) around his own body, to reconcile that part of him, confused in high school and frustrated in young adulthood, that so sorely wanted those hands all over him, and to finally be touched.</p>
<p>In complete honesty, however, he wouldn’t much care if Kageyama wasn’t his soulmate. He wouldn’t care if his soulmate was thousands and thousands of kilometres and across oceans on the other side of the world, and he wouldn’t care if they lived in the same city of him, he just hadn’t the chance to meet them yet, like he had believed for so long as he tore himself up over possibilities.</p>
<p>What’s not important to him is who is soulmate is.</p>
<p>What’s infinitely more vital, thinks he as his heart nearly beats itself out of his ribcage, is that he’s in love with Kageyama Tobio.</p>
<p><em> In love, </em> he repeats internally, aching, realizing, <em> in love, in love, in love. </em></p>
<p>He had tried so hard to reject this love. To accept it only with churlish reticence, to push it away in order to focus on volleyball, on the future he was creating for himself, and to not worry about the way Kageyama made him feel other than the drive for victory he had embedded deep within him.</p>
<p>But his eyes. And his colours. <em> His </em>colours.</p>
<p>This is his future. This is his game.</p>
<p>And this love, this love belongs to <em> him, </em>to Hinata Shouyou, this is a love that, perhaps though it came to him suddenly and without his consent, he cultivated and grew and let bloom and blossom inside of him. This love wasn’t chosen by the universe; this love wasn’t created by whatever gods or demons that bestowed upon him his double existence, this love is his.</p>
<p>(Like with all things, it was the result of his neverending tenacity, his diligence, his stubbornness, the result of all of him, and all of Kageyama.)</p>
<p>It’s just plain unrealistic that he could completely reject it.</p>
<p>And as Kageyama steps under the net to come toward him, he doesn’t think he wants to. He can’t even find it in him to try to. Not anymore. Not like this.</p>
<p>Years of turmoil and shadows, and months of worry and sympathy for his soulmate being tied to someone who couldn’t, at this point, care less about who they were, disintegrate into the kinetic energy that makes the air warble like birdsong.</p>
<p>Because even with all of that, even with every swelling contradiction that makes him up, his soulmate stands before him.</p>
<p>And it’s about time for him to embrace his love.</p>
<p>(Hopefully his soulmate has come to believe the same thing.)</p>
<p>Without a second thought for it, he collapses into Kageyama, burrows into him, and grips the back of his jersey like it’s the only thing he knows how to do.</p>
<p>+</p>
<p>(<em>“Nothing, nothing, I’m just surprised you’re being so honest with me today, Kageyama-kun,” comments Hinata. Out of the corner of Kageyama’s eye, he watches how Hinata pats him lightly on the back, just below his shoulder. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> He waits for a comment. A shift in tone. A flash in those eyes that betray his idiotic, headstrong, emotional honesty. Unless it’s at the end of a game, when he tends to come into a strange mode of concentration, Hinata struggles to to show anything on his expression that isn’t his exact predictable feelings. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Kageyama doesn’t want to care about his sexuality, not really. It hardly matters, and it’s not at all relevant to what’s most important to him -- that, of course, being volleyball. He doesn’t want to have half a mind for soulmates and romance and anything that Hinata is talking about. </em>
</p>
<p>And yet he feels as if he has been electrocuted as Hinata squeezes his shoulder.</p>
<p>
  <em> “You know,” Hinata waxes in a dramatic sort of way, “me too.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> The words come out of him easily, but the way they stagnate in the room is awkward, heavy. Kageyama turns to look at him, shrugging off his touch, and sees no malice or disgust in his eyes, but even so, what he has just said hangs in the air between them. </em>
</p>
<p>Hinata is…?</p>
<p>
  <em> His gaze narrows at him as he takes in the information. That rattles around in his mind, which has suddenly in the blink of an eye gone completely empty, as Hinata’s hand burns a hole through his t-shirt and peers up at him expectantly. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “Cool,” Kageyama bites out, not wanting to hold that gaze any longer, or stare at his half-naked body. He doesn’t want to talk about soulmates with Hinata. He doesn’t want to open up those floodgates to his vulnerability. “Great. Let’s stop talking about this,” he mumbles, cursing how the words tumble out of him and the agitation deep within his chest as he stares into the cubbies.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Hinata peels away from him with a sigh. “I bet my soulmate is a hundred times for fun than you are,” he complains all in a huff, then there’s a pause where Kageyama hears his clothes rustle. Subconsciously, his jaw tightens, and he remembers what Miwa told him about grinding his teeth -- that being that he shouldn’t do it. “I’d put money on it!” </em>
</p>
<p><em> Even with his hang-ups regarding Hinata that plague him even now, even with all of his wondering, part of the tension that had wound itself around his insides begins to unravel, and with it, the powerful grip it had that had forced his lungs into his stomach slowly releases, and he can exhale again as they give </em>. Of course Hinata wouldn’t care. He’s Hinata. I was dumb to even worry about it.</p>
<p>
  <em> But that doesn’t stop the faulty circuits that run through him as if they were his veins from sparking just below his skin as he turns to meet Hinata’s eyes once again. They malfunction at that smarmy grin of his, causing numbness to catch his joints and for a moment, leave him unable to move, let alone to speak. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “If you’re going to wager something,” he snarks, giving himself the best internal shake he can muster, “I’d rather it be yogurt.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Hinata chortles at his expense, and the two of them leave together. Any dust unsettled once again falls innocuously to the ground that they pass over. They walk along, Hinata’s uncharacteristic silence leaving Kageyama’s imagination to overwork itself as he can’t help but focus on the way sunshine glints on locks of hair that ruffle in the light, comfortable breeze, or the natural sway to his movements, as if he were gliding through the air rather than merely walking through it. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He has that same magnetic presence as he goes about his daily life that he does when he’s hypnotizing their opponents on the court. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “I worry about him, sometimes,” comments Hinata, drawing Kageyama from his casual admiration. “When we were younger, he always seemed… sad.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> There’s a bit of a despondent air to him as he speaks, an aura that gives Kageyama slight pause. “Why?” he breathes. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He watches as Hinata tilts up his chin, exposing his face fully to bright sunlight that he cringes at, reaching up like he was attempting to grab handfuls of ghost-like, peachy clouds. “I don’t think I saw bright colours for, like, a year,” he discloses, stretching out his arm fully toward that amicable sky. “It’s better now.” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Even with what Hinata’s reaching to glowing down upon them, and the lack of any real harsh winds, Kageyama can’t help but feel goosebumps rise from below his skin and scatter across his own exposed arms. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He looks at Hinata, really looks at him, regards that gentle, carefree smile that makes Kageyama’s insides jump and dance fearfully, and watches how that expression seeps into the world and spreads all around him, falls away from his body and lights it up in pale, calm oranges that track underneath both of their feet and rear up to sit with the sun and the clouds. </em>
</p>
<p><em> Even with the seasonal warmth, a distinct coldness starts to grow in the pit of Kageyama’s stomach, icy claws fanning out and making him flush an embarrassed hot to compensate before he gets ahold of himself, gritting his teeth together. </em> Sorry, Nee-san, <em> he thinks faintly. </em></p>
<p><em> He keeps himself from trembling as his heartbeat quickens, like it were giggling at him, as this anagnorisis dawns languidly upon him. Maybe it were obvious, or maybe he’s overreacting. Maybe this means nothing. Maybe, maybe, maybe, there’s a chance that all of this is a simple, stupid coincidence, easily explained, maybe Kageyama is overthinking things, maybe he has this wrong, maybe there’s no chance that Hinata could </em> possibly <em> be his soulmate, because those are for destined romantic partners, life partners, and nevermind the sudden nervous queasiness that makes his chest squeeze like he’s about to explode, and maybe-- </em></p>
<p>I don’t think I saw bright colours for, like, a year.</p>
<p>
  <em> (Kageyama remembers how his parents had to buy him clothes for the funeral. He didn’t own a black suit.) </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “So when we meet, I’m going to make him happy!” exclaims Hinata with all the shades of the rainbow bursting out of his lips, bringing down his arm, and with the gesture, bringing Kageyama out of his awful spiral. That’s right. He’s walking to club with Hinata, here, in the present. As subtly as possible, he completely tenses himself up, and releases his muscles in an attempt to purge himself of this confusing whirlwind masquerading as his thoughts. “So there’s colours everywhere. It makes playing better…” He trails off, before shooting Kageyama a pointed look. “Ah, not like anything could distract me!” </em>
</p>
<p><em> He skips ahead, humming some dumb little tune to himself as he does. A million things threaten to shoot out of Kageyama’s larynx and from his mouth, into the air between the two of them. </em> Are you my soulmate? What do you mean, make happy? You can make me happy by getting out of my head. This is dumb, right, Hinata? Why don’t we just throw the whole thing out and forget? Do you like me? </p>
<p>
  <em> “How do you plan to do that?” he says instead, hoping he doesn’t sound as hoarse as he feels he does. This is dumb. All of this is dumb and he has a bone to pick with the universe for doing this to him. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “How?” Hinata repeats. His jovial canter comes to a stop as the question seemingly stumps him, and as Kageyama catches up, he beams up at him. His face is unreasonable, really. Kageyama hates that he thinks it’s cute. “I haven’t figured it out yet!” he declares, cheered. </em>
</p>
<p><em> Almost like he’s been drowning and just resurfaced for a few brief but incredible moments, Kageyama takes in a sharp, cutting breath and fixes his head to glare forward, rather than at Hinata’s… distracting… </em> self. <em> “So, like usual,” he mutters, never in a hundred years going to admit this horrid discovery, not now, and never like this, “you’re all talk. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> Hinata elbows him, but it doesn’t hurt. “And you’re a jerk,” he sniffs, but Kageyama has trouble figuring out when he’s actually offended and when he’s playing it up. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Kageyama flicks his temple.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> He can do this. He can play the unassuming part. It’s not like this whole business will interfere with the team if he doesn’t let it, anyhow. He can keep all of this inside. He doesn’t need to let Hinata know a single thing. </em>
</p>
<p>Make him happy.</p>
<p><em> By being a complete nuisance who makes him feel all funny inside, apparently.</em>)</p>
<p>+</p>
<p>“It’s always been you,” breathes Kageyama, inhaling for the first time in ages Hinata’s sweat and the smell of his deodorant, something warm and cinnamon-y that makes him feel so impossibly at home, even though his legs are quvering and his heart may give out. “Hasn’t it, idiot?”</p>
<p>“Well, if you’re so smart,” gulps Hinata, fingers clenching the folds of Kageyama’s jersey, face pressed into his chest, “why didn’t you mention it sooner?”</p>
<p>Kageyama clutches Hinata to him, because there’s not a snowball’s chance in Hell he could think to let his soulmate go. He wants to hold flush to him the person who painted his world in so many unbelievably vibrant shades, hold his perfect and possible body until the Earth falls off its axis and there is sunlight every day.</p>
<p>But, truthfully, in that moment, Kageyama Tobio does not care whether or not Hinata Shouyou is his soulmate.</p>
<p>Universe-bound or otherwise, there is only one person he wants to bring colour to his life.</p>
<p>And should he have to face whatever deity guards this sacred realm and defy them to make that his reality, he will do it once to make his point, twice for good measure, and three times for security. </p>
<p>(If he is to be punished; so what? Hell is an abstract concept to the possibility of them without one another.)</p>
<p>“So?”</p>
<p>“So what?”</p>
<p>Hinata’s teammates, those of them he can see, are staring at him and Kageyama. Miya and Sakusa are making similar grimaces; Bokuto is giving them a thumbs up. “I finally figured out a way,” Hinata murmurs into him, his voice piercing through Kageyama and resonating deep within the marrow of his bones and every cell through each organ and limb. “Did I make you happy?”</p>
<p>Instead of replying, Kageyama bundles him up, presses his not-all-too small and not-all-too short anymore form to him, lets his face drop into Hinata’s matted, knotty, still messy all these years later hair, compelled by the feeling of his heart racing at his abdomen and the shudders of his lungs across his heaving chest.</p>
<p>It is by their own volition that the court around them exhales.</p>
<p>And they stay like that, buried in each other and drenched in passion and overflowing emotions that spill into oblivion, until Kageyama’s muscles creak and his pride for the person who promised him at age fifteen he would best him and followed through reaches its zenith.</p>
<p>Hinata sways away from him, and he lets his hand go -- not slowly or delicately, but with a sense of incredible urgency, up to cup Hinata’s face. The lines in his palms make love with the trails of sweat that peel down soft, reddened cheeks, and he swipes his thumb into Hinata’s open mouth, digging his nail into the corner of his parted lips and opening up into his heat. Warm breath shirks across the skin stretched over his knuckles.</p>
<p>“What do you think?” asks Kageyama, fingers cradling with purpose Hinata’s jawline, staring into those wide eyes of his. He tips up Hinata’s face, marvelling at how his fluster sparkles.</p>
<p>The few seconds in which their breathing syncs are agonizing.</p>
<p>“I know that you’re, like, super impatient and crass even after all this time,” starts Hinata, words a bit stunted on account of their position, “but we’re in public, Kageyama.” His own hand settles where Kageyama’s jersey is tucked into his shorts, hooking a thumb around the band. He’s an electric fire, blowing every circuit (faulty or otherwise) wound up inside Kageyama. “Can’t you wait to kiss me?”</p>
<p>
  <em> No.  </em>
</p>
<p>For so long, he has worked tirelessly. To get to this point. To get to this <em> stage. </em>Not necessarily to get Hinata, not in this exact way, but maybe it's a natural byproduct.</p>
<p>Of both of their determination.</p>
<p>Even though Kageyama has never kissed anyone before, never before wanted it as strongly as he does now, he wants Hinata to kiss him like no one else has and like no one ever will.</p>
<p>“Who said I was going to kiss you?” Even so, he retorts as a natural reflex.</p>
<p>Hinata's other hand crawls up to hold Kageyama's wrist, and the way his fingers move and smooth over the fine hairs of the back of his hand send tingles all through his nerves, starting there, at ground zero.</p>
<p>"I want you to," Hinata whispers. </p>
<p>Though his words are quiet, blanketed, in his gaze glimmers the utmost challenge, and firecrackers go off inside Kageyama's stomach. Bright, bright firecrackers, all in pinks and yellows and reds and in everything Hinata has given to him and will continue to give to him explode out of and in him, and it hurts so much, it hurts, it hurts. It’s like Hinata is tearing him open and curling his fingers around his very own heart, like he has the power and the will to rip it out of him should he so please.</p>
<p>His finger is on the pulse -- Kageyama opened himself up to Karasuno, to Hinata, to his teams since, and he's wrapped around the one who gave him that courage, who stands, hand inside his chest, deciding whether he lives or dies.</p>
<p>He resents that he's gotten so bad at refusing Hinata over the years. Seriously, what happened to him? </p>
<p>"Later," is what makes its way out of him. And suddenly, in his skin and bones, he feels awkward, obvious, and so wonderfully vulnerable, but decidedly not shameful -- because he is in love and the world is so bright it hurts, it <em> hurts. </em></p>
<p>Because there will be a later.</p>
<p>Because, on this court and on this team, and in the arms of Hinata, he isn't alone anymore.</p>
<p>
  <em> He doesn't have to be alone anymore. </em>
</p>
<p>"Hm, I dunno, Kageyama. Can I trust you?" Hinata asks, simpering. The longer they linger in each other's heat, the closer Kageyama comes to full implosion. "I mean, it's been, like, two years. How do I know you still keep your promises?"</p>
<p>"You little twerp."</p>
<p>"That's not a nice thing to say to your <em> sooooulmate." </em></p>
<p>Kageyama withdraws his thumb from Hinata’s mouth and instead swipes it over his lips, bringing it across the sweat that lies there. Gently, he presses the whorl of his thumbprint into them, then, slowly, the wonder in Hinata’s eyes magnetically drawn to the movement, brings it back to himself. He rests the tip of his nail against the pillow of his bottom lip as he murmurs, “Okay, dumbass, <em> later. </em>I promise.”</p>
<p>Hinata blinks up at him, stupefied.</p>
<p>Then he averts his gaze, rose blooming across his cheeks adorably. He’s cute, isn’t he, huh. Shame he didn’t realize it from the start. “Kageyama!” He lets his hand down from where he had been gripping Kageyama’s wrist, and it falls, despondently, to grab at his jersey. “Who taught you to say things like that? Who are you and what have you done with Kageyama Tobio?”</p>
<p>“What? What are you talking about?”</p>
<p>Appearing to struggle through the action, Hinata weakly punches him in the gut. It hits like a feather falling onto his stomach. “I refuse to accept you’ve become cool.” He whirls around, and through Kageyama is still catching up with the entire conversation, the loss of his warmth pierces him like a knife. </p>
<p>"Are you done, Shouyou-kun?" calls Miya, nonplussed, as Bokuto putzes around beside him. </p>
<p>"Come on, Hinata! We won!" he yells, waving his hands wildly, and hardly looking like he noticed their whole encounter -- at least, not the extent of it. Something about the way he's grinning, though… "It's time to celebrate!"</p>
<p>Still not looking at him, Hinata yells out stiltedly, “Bye, Kageyama, I’ll text you!”</p>
<p>And then he takes off in a sprint toward his team. Bokuto slaps him so hard on the back he almost trips, and Miya cranes his neck to stick out his tongue at Kageyama and flash him a peace sign, and both of these reactions cause Kageyama to stare after them like a lost puppy on a busy street, still sweating from the exertion of the game and how warm Hinata had been. Where he had been, pressed to his body, it feels as if his skin has been ripped off.</p>
<p>
  <em> Huh? </em>
</p>
<p>And left in the wake of everything, his loss and his love and all that had been unrepressed, stands Kageyama Tobio, caught as a deer in the headlights.</p>
<p>=</p>
<p>That deer ends up on the doorstep to Hinata’s apartment, rapping on the door that very same evening, because he can’t afford to be coy or shy in the way he approaches Hinata. Had he texted him? Sure. But it was uncharacteristically simple; a mere address, without any dressage.</p>
<p>Perhaps he’s as nervous as Kageyama’s roiling stomach, and the unsure, tentative cocoa surroundings suggests he is. Nevertheless, he presses on.</p>
<p>He’s gotten this far already.</p>
<p>Hinata opens the door, having since changed out of his uniform, and looks up Kageyama in a pair of joggers and a t-shirt that’s just a little too big on him. The moment they exchange glances, Hinata’s entire face takes a turn for the flushed.</p>
<p>“Fancy seeing you here,” he chokes, and wonderfully, every part of him is maddeningly endearing. </p>
<p>“You invited me.”</p>
<p>Leaning against the doorframe in a show of (completely false, if Kageyama knows anything about him) bravado, Hinata goes, “Right. Well, uh, do you want to come in?”</p>
<p>He’s still the same. It assuages some fears. “Are you asking if I want to stay out here forever?”</p>
<p>Hinata yanks him in by the jacket and slams the door shut behind them. <em> Well, alright. I guess he’s a little stronger. </em></p>
<p>As Kageyama takes off his coat and hangs it up, Hinata fiddles with the drawstring of his pants, shifting impatiently, and not attempting to make any small talk. When Kageyama finishes and gives him an inquisitive look, he tips his head toward the hallway leading out of the genkan. “My bedroom’s this way,” he says, and then turns and starts off leading him further into the house.</p>
<p>Once again, Kageyama is left a little speechless -- it’s one of Hinata’s talents. It makes sense to do away with any pretense of normal niceties after everything, he supposes, but still, his throat goes dry as he follows Hinata’s quick steps. </p>
<p>As he goes, he notices little decoration on the walls, which surprises him. Maybe he isn’t fully moved in yet, and Kageyama chooses to distract himself with these thoughts as Hinata disappears into a branching room.</p>
<p>He steps into the fray himself.</p>
<p>And well, it’s… a normal bedroom, like any other. Weirdly minimalistic. Kageyama isn’t quite sure what he was imagining Hinata’s room to look like, but it’s neat enough, and he notices a familiar Karasuno jacket hanging up on a hook in the corner.</p>
<p>It’s nice that he kept his, too.</p>
<p>After some dithering, Hinata settles on the edge of his bed, and looks at him expectantly. Taking his cue, Kageyama sits beside him, putting space in between them. He worries that if they’re too close, everything is going to catch up, and he won’t be able to stop himself. </p>
<p>He’s been obsessing over the way Hinata feels since he pulled away that afternoon.</p>
<p>“When did you figure it out?” Hinata starts off, accusatory. “You sounded like you already knew.”</p>
<p>“Uh… well.” Kageyama doesn’t shy away from the intensity of Hinata’s gaze, but he does end fishing for words for a little longer than maybe it would have taken if he wasn’t being stared at. “Probably at the end of our first year. When you got subbed out during the Kamomedai game.”</p>
<p>Hinata balks at him. “Why didn’t you tell me, you idiot?”</p>
<p>
  <em> Because I didn’t know if you liked me. Because I couldn’t believe you would like me. Because I was afraid to lose someone like you. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Because of what you can do to me. </em>
</p>
<p>“Oh, piss off,” Kageyama admonishes with knit eyebrows. “Would you have told me?”</p>
<p>Hinata scrunches up his face. “Definitely would’ve,” he mutters, glaring daggers into Kageyama. “If I knew,” he tacks on, voice petering off in a way that makes Kageyama have to sway toward him, entranced by the sound of his words.</p>
<p>“Did you just figure it out?” asks Kageyama quietly.</p>
<p>With a defiant twinge to his eyes, Hinata huffs at him, and doesn’t reply. With that answer, or rather, the lack thereof, Kageyama’s smirk quirks his lips up at the corner. “I win,” he says, smug, inspiring that spark of fight he loves to see glow on Hinata.</p>
<p>“I <em> definitely </em>realized I liked you first,” he argues, “you’re too daft.”</p>
<p>“Oh, really-- wait, you like me?”</p>
<p>The <em> “you have got to be kidding me” </em>expression that takes over Hinata’s mutinous countenance is so searing, it almost makes Kageyama flinch. But it doesn’t hold for too long; after some seconds of stunned silent, laughter bubbles out of Hinata’s lips, and his hand inches over his comforter to Kageyama’s. His fingertips, buzzingly, run into Kageyama’s own, and slowly, clumsily, their fingers interlace. They slide together with great deliberation, and because of that, every touch receptor Kageyama’s have to offer register, agonizingly, every minute movement down to the cells.</p>
<p>“You can’t be for real,” Hinata giggles, “can you?”</p>
<p>“Sh-shut up,” Kageyama stammers, face heating up, as Hinata laughs.</p>
<p>“I like you,” Hinata tells him.</p>
<p>And well, Kageyama knew that -- he would have had to, for things to get here. To get to this house, to come to be sitting on this bed, to have the fingers of Hinata’s hand slotted into his, almost like the spaces between them were made for this.</p>
<p>But it’s still nice to hear.</p>
<p>...Even if it makes him fluster like a grade five boy who was just told, via a messenger, that his crush liked him back.</p>
<p>(That is kind of accurate to his emotional state at the moment -- nervous and hoping and feeling like he’s on the edge of something great, like he’s back, standing on the gnarled roots of an old tree, whispering secrets back and forth with his classmates under the yellow, yellow sky.</p>
<p>Of course, that’s not a memory that belongs to him, but he feels as though he’s trying on a feeling borrowed from someone else, too; with time, he will make it his own.)</p>
<p>“Me, too. I…” </p>
<p>So then, he says what he feels is right.</p>
<p>“I love you.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t even begin to realize what he’s just said until Hinata’s reaction -- soft surprise, shadowed with presumably horror -- starts to dawn over him, and his carefree chuckles die away. With eyes wide as twin moons, he stares into Kageyama, mouth the tiniest bit agape as he registers his words. “Er--” even though this sort of thing isn’t really his <em> forte, </em>he knows that’s not the sort of thing you’re supposed to say right away, for Heaven’s sake, he rarely heard his parents say it to one another--</p>
<p>“Kageyamaaa,” whines Hinata, colouring from a warm brown into something a little more pinkish, face a ruddy shade of embarrassed and adorable. “You can’t just say things like that! It’s not allowed!”</p>
<p>“Say what?” Kageyama replies, giddiness climbing up his ribcage. “That I love you?”</p>
<p>With an annoyed noise, Hinata reels forward with the hand that isn’t holding Kageyama’s, and grips his shirt with force, thumb slipping and hooking over the collar, his nail brushing the skin just below it. He jerks Kageyama toward him, and he stumbles across the edge of the bed, regaining his balance just before he flops ungracefully on top of Hinata. The look to him -- shimmering, sparkling, and so, so tantalizing -- makes Kageyama shiver.</p>
<p>“Kiss me,” he demands.</p>
<p>And because Kageyama does not have the strength nor the will to refuse him, he responds in a breathy, “Okay.”</p>
<p>With reluctance, he takes his hand away from Hinata’s, and uses both of his to come to cup Hinata’s face, His arms, though the movement they undertake be slight, feel as though they’re moving through something so much thicker than air, and to him, it takes ages until he’s finally holding him, here, <em> alone. </em>No teammates to gawk. No audience members chanting for them. No friends to watch them with great interest as they take their first leap into this togetherdom.</p>
<p>They own the space between these walls and inside these pigments.</p>
<p>And although he gravitates toward the person who told him he didn’t ever need to face life on his own again, he doesn’t think he minds being alone together. As long as it’s like this.</p>
<p>He guides Hinata’s face to his own, and gently, parts his lips.</p>
<p>It is then that everything begins.</p>
<p>The universe bursts out from between the seams of their bodies like stuffing unfurling from God's greatest creation. It grazes against Hinata's wonderful, soft face as it curls out of Kageyama's fingertips and it falls in droves all around them, buffeting their sides in iridescent cotton that reflects the colours they built, and will continue to build, for each other.</p>
<p>It all explodes out of him, every shade of pink and red pours out and runs down him in rivulets that evaporate into this inescapable air.</p>
<p>Hinata is so… <em> hot, </em>every part of him is hot. The warmth of his mouth hypnotizes Kageyama further, pulls him in deeper, his unshakeable gravity collapsing Kageyama to him, planets falling apart under their own pressure.</p>
<p>He's the sun -- bright and everlasting and so <em> hot, </em>every part of him is a chemical reaction, and Kageyama feels his explosions sizzle and spark against his skin, searing marks in unwinding emotions that make Kageyama weak in knees.</p>
<p>It's all so <em> violent </em> , each and every bouncing particle that causes second-by-second bursts of gas and energy is so incredibly loud. It's deafening, <em> he's </em> deafening, <em> bang bang bang, </em>a cacophony that rattles his skull and turns his brain to liquid.</p>
<p>Or it would, if one could hear in space.</p>
<p>He has the potential to ruin everything, to hurt Kageyama, to <em> kill </em>him, but all he does is pull Kageyama's shirt collar in close, his warmth speaking to a body that can't do anything but listen to him. His hands melt around Hinata's cheeks, cradling the sides of his face as he moves against Hinata's lips.</p>
<p>He's probably not doing it right. Not at all. But for those lingering heartbeats as he breathes through Hinata's lungs, hearing clearly as gunshots the slight noises that eke out where their mouths disconnect, it doesn't matter.</p>
<p>He's waited so long to touch his rose-gold body like this. </p>
<p>Nothing can stop him <em> now. </em></p>
<p>With a small sound of struggle that slides through the air as a whine, Hinata breaks apart from Kageyama, his fists entangled in the fabric of his shirt. Kageyama’s hands -- eager, nervous -- trip down the sides of Hinata’s throat. His collarbones and his shoulders rise and fall in tandem with breaths that shake his entire body.</p>
<p>Kageyama hardly realized how heavy his own are as he stares, dumbfounded, into round, glimmering eyes that shift into a deep, romantic mauve that permeates through the whole room. Its effervescence glitters in the lowlight.</p>
<p>“Kageyama,” he rasps. The name lies in the sparking air for several moments as the two exhale shudderingly into each other. Face flushed and so<em> electric </em>, fists so tight white crawls into his knuckles, Hinata murmurs, “your technique could use some work.”</p>
<p>Thumbs stroking the skin of Hinata's neck just under his jaw, Kageyama gawks at him. "I-- you--"</p>
<p>Hinata smirks at him, a gorgeous vision in something tentative yet urgent that Kageyama can't quite name.</p>
<p>"You could stand to practice some more, too." He brings Hinata's face closer to his. His head like this -- chin tilted up, exposing the neck that Kageyama's hands lie on the side of and press experimentally into -- makes him almost seem at Kageyama's mercy.</p>
<p>It makes his head go kind of fuzzy.</p>
<p>"Sure, sure," Hinata goes. "But only if you call me Shouyou."</p>
<p>Kageyama's palms inch up, bringing his thumbs as tenderly as he can manage across his lovely skin, memorizing the sensation of his eyelashes brushing, ever so minutely, against the whorls in his fingerprints. The tips of his fingers curl, securing Hinata right in front of him.</p>
<p>When he breathes in, he tastes Hinata.</p>
<p>"Shouyou."</p>
<p>"Tobio."</p>
<p>Defiance glows in Hinata's gaze. A challenge -- of course. Kageyama expects nothing less from him. </p>
<p>Who is he to back down?</p>
<p>He brings Hinata’s face to his, parting his lips for a second time with his tongue as Hinata’s hands fall from his chest and come instead to rest on his waist, holding his hips as Kageyama leans further into him. With each short moment their lips detach, Kageyama draws a new sound from deep within him, sounds that start to fill Kageyama with a heat he’s never known and a love he’s about to.</p>
<p>He made it, he made it, he made it, he made it to Division 1 and he made it to the Olympics and he made it to this bed, and everything within Kageyama is so much he can hardly stand it. He feels like he’s about to explode -- it’s been so long since he’s known emotion like this.</p>
<p>He used to have nothing.</p>
<p>Now, filled to the brim, he’s so happy he can hardly stand it.</p>
<p>The stuffing bunches at torn thread.</p>
<p>“Tobio,” wails Hinata as he’s eased down. One hand gripping the bottom of Kageyama’s shirt, and the other propping him up, he stares up at Kageyama. His given name, said by Hinata, said in that <em> voice, </em>makes his insides tremble. His chest squeezes, contracting as if his heart has been sucked dry.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>Still looking somehow petulant, even behind his rich eyes and dark fluster, Hinata's hand follows one of Kageyama's arms until it comes to pull at his fingertips, guiding it away from his face and down his torso. His nail catches on his shirt fabric until it pauses where the band of his sweatpants meets his t-shirt, and Hinata edges his hand below it.</p>
<p>Kageyama's hand encloses around his hip bone, and the warmth of the skin that stretches over it makes Kageyama's throat close up.</p>
<p>Despite a hesitant, shy lilt to his demeanor that makes Kageyama want to scream, the determination reflected in Hinata's expression is the same as always. "I want you to touch me," he whispers, gaze piercing all the same.</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>Kageyama’s stomach crackles and snaps, rolling in on itself as blood races through his veins, <em> pulsing </em> with his quickened heartbeat, just below his skin. It’s almost frightening just how <em> present </em>it is -- his veins beat so strongly, yet it feels like he has no control over his body.</p>
<p>In some ways, it’s how he feels when he plays. In others, the sensation is so foreign it makes him dizzy.</p>
<p>
  <em> I want you to touch me. </em>
</p>
<p>Ah, right.</p>
<p>So that's what this colour is.</p>
<p><em> I want to touch </em> you <em> so badly. </em></p>
<p>"Okay," he responds, but he's not exactly sure how it comes out, because his voice is bubbling like spring water and blood is pounding in his ears and all around him. The more he leans forward on his haunches, the tighter the breaths he sucks in become.</p>
<p>"Just <em> okay? </em>I guess Tobio is still Tobio," reprimands Hinata, but his laugh stutters as it leaves his lips.</p>
<p>Nervous tension cuts through Kageyama’s arousal as he gazes down at Hinata.</p>
<p>What is correct? What is right? He wants to touch Hinata in every way he never could, he realizes as he uses one anxious hand to press down on his abdomen and lower him gently to the bed, and he wants him to feel good.</p>
<p>He can barely keep himself together, and he doesn’t really know how to begin.</p>
<p>Half-sprawled on the bedsheets, Kageyama’s hand over the warmth of his stomach, Hinata blinks.</p>
<p>“Stop thinking so much,” he says, as if able to hear Kageyama’s misgivings. “Just…”</p>
<p>“I know, I know.”</p>
<p>Hinata grins at him as he shifts his weight, crawling over him and coming to straddle his waist between his knees. Wow, he thinks, wow, wow, wow. It’s almost hard to look at him -- there’s an intensity to this colour that makes his eyes squint and his legs shake as he stoops down to put his mouth on Hinata’s throat. The skin there is so sensitive, so unbelievably soft, as he moves down, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. Hinata’s hands crawl up the back of his neck, inching up into his hair and gripping confidently at the short locks that lie there.</p>
<p>Kageyama feels it building. He feels something indescribable, something he’s only ever experienced small tastes of before this, while he laid in his bed in the dark and thought of putting his hands all over Hinata’s vulnerable body. Then he had cursed himself and hid his blushing face in his pillow, but now, with him actually below his touch, everything rises within him.</p>
<p>As Kageyama pulls Hinata’s shirt up off of him as he pulls one knee over Hinata’s leg and pushes it into his thigh, watching with great interest as he stiffens. He’s so… <em> built. </em> Sure, he had bulked up in high school toward the end of their time there, and he <em> did </em>spend years training in Brazil, but… Kageyama wasn’t sure what to expect. His fingertips follow curves of strong muscle and his eyes wander to the lines in his biceps, and he can’t help but focus on just how powerful his hold on his neck is.</p>
<p>He’s changed so much. Kageyama aches.</p>
<p>“I want to, too,” he mumbles. “Touch you. I mean.”</p>
<p>“What’s stopping you?”</p>
<p>Hinata draws him in closer, and their lips connect again. Somewhat reluctantly, Kageyama allows Hinata to guide their rhythm, but as he does, he takes his wrists away, pinning them to the side, both their hands pressed into the bedsheets.</p>
<p>Over and over, they fall apart and together, and each time they do, that <em> something </em> strengthens in Kageyama, growing more and more into a feeling he doesn’t know how to react to. Each time, his tension unravels a little further. “Tobio,” breathes Hinata, wiggling his legs impatiently, <em>“</em> <em> Tobio, </em> <em>”</em> he repeats, as Kageyama’s mouth begins to work its way down Hinata’s exposed form.</p>
<p>“What?” gulps Kageyama, Hinata’s nails digging into his shoulders as he hovers above the top of his abdomen.</p>
<p>“Don’t be so gentle,” Hinata tells him, voice strained and seeming a little impatient, and Kageyama’s heart leaps into his throat. “You’re not going to break me.”</p>
<p>
  <em> You’re not going to break me. You’re not going to break me. </em>
</p>
<p>...That’s right.</p>
<p>By manner of his hard work, the environment he grew in, and every little circumstance, planned or not, that brought him to this point. He didn’t get here by happenstance; rather, it was his sheer dedication, his undying drive and <em> desire </em>that flung him to these high plateaux. He scrabbled to these peaks and he has the blood on his palms to show for it.</p>
<p>If he’s <em> here, </em>if he’s gotten to this point already, why does he need to hesitate?</p>
<p>Hinata would never let him live it down if this is where he shows restraint, right?</p>
<p>He doesn’t need to be timid. He doesn’t need to be scared. </p>
<p>...There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore. Not here. Not in this pink air.</p>
<p>Because the world is beautiful.</p>
<p><em> Hinata Shouyou </em> is beautiful.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Kageyama inhales. He spreads his hands across the distinct V-shape his body forms (alright, he <em> definitely </em> didn’t look like <em> that </em>when they were teenagers, thinks Kageyama numbly), holding him firmly against the bed as he juts out his knee, forcing Hinata’s legs apart. He looks down at Hinata, whose eyes fly open at the sudden movement. His pupils dart down to the new pressure, then snap back up to concentrate his attention on Kageyama, quickly swiping his tongue over his lips. “But do you think you can handle it?”</p>
<p>Hinata opens his mouth, then closes it. Kageyama cracks a small smile at that.</p>
<p>“I can handle anything you throw at me,” he finally says. He’s glowing. He’s so bright, it’s unbearable.</p>
<p>(<em> And </em> he’s not putting on airs.)  </p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>Hinata’s fingers find and take fistfuls of the sheet below. “You know,” he starts, unwavering, “I don’t think it’s fair that you still have your shirt on."</p>
<p>Kageyama rocks up, still holding down Hinata. "Really?"</p>
<p>"Really." Hinata raises one eyebrow at him. </p>
<p>Unable to say no to the look in his mercurial eyes, Kageyama obliges, tossing it to the side where it crumples into a forgotten pile alongside the one he threw off of Hinata. "Better?"</p>
<p>He would have to be blind not to notice how Hinata's gaze falls, and it makes a shiver run down the curve of his spine. "Yeah.”</p>
<p>Kageyama manoeuvres the two of them around, free, unbarred, no misconceptions and no fears to hold him back, to hoist Hinata up onto his lap. He runs his hands up from his hips, passing over his lean body, fingernails sinking into the supple muscle of his shoulder blades.</p>
<p>...Just because he’s gotten a little confidence back doesn’t mean his heart is any quieter.</p>
<p>Hinata’s legs constrict around his waist and his arms wrap around his neck to pull him in closer as Kageyama again presses into him. There’s so much he wants to try with Hinata, so much he wishes to do to him, but for now, it’s alright to pick up where they left off. It’s not too much longer before his better judgement completely slips away, anyhow.</p>
<p>This is their world, now.</p>
<p>They have so much more time left together.</p>
<p>And he can be as forceful as Hinata wants him to be.</p>
<p>With each passing second, he becomes more and more acclimated to Hinata’s touch. To the feel of his body and the noises Kageyama is able to bring out of his chest, to the way his hands grope and pull, almost desperately, and to the dreamy, Earth-shattering way Kageyama’s given name sounds coming out of his lips in his breathless, wired voice. It steals into Kageyama’s mind, and it’s the only thing pinging around between his neurons. Circuits fried, all that plays on repeat is <em> Tobio, Tobio, Tobio, </em>punctuated with passing fancies of what he can do to make him say it more, in so many different shades.</p>
<p>Kageyama wants to be the only thing he can think about. He deserves a little taste of his own medicine.</p>
<p>They break apart when their lungs give, and Hinata buries his face in the crook of Kageyama’s shoulder, right where it slopes into his neck. Kageyama’s chest burns where their skin melds together, the beginnings of sweat starting to glisten where they connect, and deep inside, he feels like he’s all sorts of messed up -- his heart is in his lungs and his throat is in his stomach. Each part of him feels mismatched and clumsy, like something went wrong during his building process.</p>
<p>He’s toeing the line of <em> everything, </em>teetering on the precipice of his craving.</p>
<p>Hinata exhales deeply into him. His fingers flex and relax against muscle. “Tobio,” he says softly, each breath glancing upon Kageyama’s collarbone, waltzing across his wanting body.</p>
<p>“What is it?” he mumbles into Hinata’s hair -- shorter, now, than when they were younger. He keeps it well cropped, nowadays, and it doesn’t seem to fly away like it used to in the midst of a game. He likes it now. He liked it then. He even liked it when it was a little ratty, curled around his ears, in their third year; though, he would never tell him that.</p>
<p>He likes all of him.</p>
<p>Hinata nestles further into him, his earlier impatience apparently momentarily left aside. “I’m here,” he murmurs.</p>
<p>It hurts so much. It hurts, it hurts, <em> God, </em>does it fucking hurt.</p>
<p>Kageyama hides a smile so bright and so painful that makes his eyes water in locks of hair that are painstakingly swept into passionate pinks, breathing in a scent of some faintly fruit-scented shampoo as Hinata rips him open, again and again.</p>
<p>Worst part is, he'll let him.</p>
<p>"Yeah," Kageyama concurs quietly, wrapped up in all of him. "You're here."</p>
<p>Hinata pulls away, blinking slowly, as he comes to gaze, eyelids heavy, at Kageyama. His grip on his own wrist, arms still locked around Kageyama's neck, tightens, straight straight into him. He appears like he's about to speak, but then seems to think better of it, and settles on biting down on his lower lip.</p>
<p>Kageyama swallows.</p>
<p>Briefly wondering what happened to his bravado, he starts off, "Are you ready?"</p>
<p>"Mhm."</p>
<p>And two halves they cease to be, and one whole they finally become.</p>
<p>And into the evermore of that very same togetherness they will go -- but not just as they are now, attempting a masterpiece in paints they mixed for each other from palettes they sculpted by their own hands. They will be partners, rivals, adversaries and teammates, and two stars blinking in the same constellation, carefully crafted by the universe, destined to be by each other's side until the Milky Way fades from memory and becomes a distant dream in a new world, a world full of incredible and captivating colours their love spun.</p>
<p>Kageyama holds so impossibly tight to him the person he's been searching for his entire life.</p>
<p>
  <em> Did I make you happy?  </em>
</p>
<p>His brain supplies what he couldn't find the words to say.</p>
<p>
  <em> Why do you even need to ask?  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"all the shades of blue<br/>go away when i'm with you<br/>put a golden frame around my heart,<br/>because you make me feel like a piece of art."<br/>-shades of blue, ashton edminster<br/>and you were like, "hey, that's just body talks again!" and you would be right. i could write a million different versions of kghn falling for each other and hugging after the bj/sa game. insert em forster quote about how two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows. but it's like...... anti body talks. no touching until marriage &gt;:(<br/>i kinda struggle to write kagehina in aus. i have a few other than this in the works, but idk man, so much of who they are is entrenched in this epic decade long romance that started on the court. but i also love soulmate aus, so... here it is, slotted into canon.<br/>as i was writing this, i was reading the stonewall reader. not to romanticize homophobia and discrimination (obviously??), but i was really captivated by the way so many of the authors described desire, sex, and intimacy in a time where queerness was criminal, seen as a deplorable mental illness and a threat to the sanctity of the country. post wwii, lgbt people were considered a danger to america's security, much like communists and anarchists. enough of the history lesson, though. i wanted to write something urgent. i wish colour had more synonyms<br/>big ups 2 @overwhelmingly_awesome as usual who generally likes to read bokuaka and iwaoi but whom i force to read my kghn bullshit, and who supports me when i send videos on snap of me actually crying about kageyama while she does important uni work<br/>(also, please don't read too much into any of the dates or stuff. i fail to understand the progression of linear time and i've thought way too long about things i prolly got wrong. but for your information, i think the pokemon game mentioned in the start would have been black/white?)<br/>thank you for reading! and thanks to anyone who reads these long-winded authors notes (hands you a werther's original) for your troubles<br/>good night everyone, i hope you're happy. i'm gonna go write something stupid</p></blockquote></div></div>
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